Yesterday our family gathered at our house to celebrate Christmas together. My parents, brother, mother-in-law, and grandparents (Babci and Dziadziu) all came over. It was a nice gathering with a few gifts passed between people. However, the larger family gathering didn't start till the afternoon. The first taste of Christmas was had bright and early in the morning with our son who is a non stop motion machine. He was up bright and early as usual at around 5:45, so that's when Christmas started. The beautiful thing about yesterday, at least from a parent's perspective, was that our son didn't get any new toys. I know, what kind of parents are we that don't get our son more toys that he will inevitably use once and then discard in a pile somewhere to gather dust? I'd say we are the type of parents who don't want to inundate our son with too much. As it is, he doesn't even utilize all the toys he currently has at his disposal. He as more and longer lasting fun with pots and pans and Tupperware than any other toy he has. He does love his magnetic letters, his stackable cups, and his different shaped blocks, but aside from those, he would gladly occupy himself with two boxes of cardboard rather than some new toy that whirls, whizzes, and goes pop, bam, boom. So all our son got for Christmas this year, from us and relatives, was clothes (and also money for college). To be perfectly honest, he had more fun with the wrapping paper than anything that was actually inside the wrapping paper. It was incredibly cute to watch him run around with his multitude of different sized pieces of wrapping paper. Aside from his presents, my wife and I always have a limit set for ourselves on how much we can spend on each other. We normally go over by a little bit, but never that much. Also, we have figured out very early on that it is kind of pointless to buy unnecessary gifts that won't be utilized. As such, we now get practical gifts for each other, ones we will actually use. For my wife, I got her an herb mill for fresh herbs from our garden, a plastic veggie steamer for cooking, new baking sheets, and a food scale. There were a few other food items thrown in there, but that was pretty much it. My wife got me a workshop idea book, a variety of unique beers, some equipment for home brewing, and some other useful items. At least she didn't get me any chocolate this year!
Even when it came time to exchange gifts with the rest of our family, no one went overboard. Everything we got for each other was useful or something we asked for, and even then, the presents were kept to a minimum. All in all, Christmas was a very enjoyable day spent with family. Throughout the course of the day, our son did exceptionally well considering the fact that he only took a forty five minute nap yesterday morning. He showed occasional signs of crankiness, wanted to be held a lot, but for the most part did really well. It is getting marginally easier with our son now that he can understand us a little more. As he understands us more, or at least associates certain words with specific rooms and actions, he is developing his own way of telling us what he needs or wants. In respect to eating and food (which he loves to do), he has a few different ways he lets us know he is hungry and wants to eat. The first is pointing at the bananas that hang in a basket in our kitchen. That is the first sign and if we are holding him, it is quite easy to figure out what he wants. The second sign is going right over to his high chair and trying to climb in. This method, however, doesn't happen to often as his high chair is in our dining room which we have barricaded for safety reasons with gates (the dogs water is in there and also access to our bathroom). So with that option mostly off the table, he has a new one that is very easy to figure out. If we ask him if he wants to eat or is hungry, he will go right over to the refrigerator, look at us, and try to pull the door open. I think that is the most obvious sign that he is hungry and ready for food. Outside of the realm of food and eating, he is also very observant and learns quickly. If we ask him to ring the bell on his train (it is bigger than him and doubles as a toy chest), he goes right over and rings the bell. He knows some other objects as well, and if he is in the right mood, will bring them over upon request. However, if he is in his own world exploring things and playing with different objects, it is a lost cause. Regardless, and I have said this before, it is amazing to watch him learn about the world by observing it, testing it over and over again, and then moving on. But back to Christmas now.
I hope that we can keep Christmas as simple as it was this year in the future. There was not an overabundance of presents and clean up was very easy. I know that I will be tempted to buy our son more "stuff" down the line, but I am counting on my wife to keep me in check and remind me that it is not necessary. I am slowly coming around though and I am sure that I won't have too many issues. Even dinner was simple. As opposed to Thanksgiving where we did most of the cooking, for the Christmas dinner we divided up the duties having both of our mother's prepare a different side dish that would accompany the main dish that were preparing. This way we only had to worry about a few things rather than an entire meal. On top of that, it was nice that everyone helped with the clean up (OK, so not everyone, mostly the women. Before anyone has a fit that the women did all the cleaning, I just want to add that I offered to help and was told that one more person in the kitchen would be too much and that I should just watch our son. Needless to say, I didn't argue. I did wander in near the end to help dry some dishes though. So at the end of the day when everyone had gone, there were only a few dishes left from dessert that we had to clean up and everything was back to normal. Now that is what I call a successful Christmas day dinner and celebration. Simple, and with very little clean up afterwards. Today, when I walked downstairs, everything was back to normal, except our tree is still up and there are a few more presents lying around. In any case, it is now time to get back on the work wagon and get myself in gear for today. I essentially took a week off from work, starting Friday and ending yesterday, and now it is time to hit the asphalt running. I still have work luckily, even now during the holiday season, and once we pass the New Year mark into 2013 (the year absolutely flew by), it will pick up even more. Personally, I am glad the Mayan's had it wrong about the end of the world, I just wasn't quite ready for it to end (not that I had much of a choice in the matter). Till tomorrow, enjoy the Christmas afterglow and try not to hit the stores too hard with returns.
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