Christmas

Christmas morning I ran downstairs first to turn the lights on and start water for coffee and warming milk, then back upstairs so we could all come down together. The first thing she ran for was her Snowdrop Deer that I made for her, and while I make her things as much because I enjoy the process of making them as for the end result, I love that my not quite 1.5 year old loves handmade things so much too.

She was excited about everything she opened, but the biggest hits this year were this Horse and Rider from her Nana (which I expected and requested be opened last in case she wouldn’t be into other stuff after it), Owl, Pout Pout Fish, her Narwhal and Daydreamers from Santa, Otter from my brother and Stormy Weather. She also got a big bag of socks with pictures of animals on them and had fun all day moving them from room to room and into and out of various containers. We joke that her favorite game right now is moving commodities.

She loved her stocking and unpacking it. When I was pulling the pictures for this post, she came in and saw the stocking picture and squealed with excitement, pointing and laughing and babbling at the picture. We then went to find the narwhal to play with and that was also very exciting. She likes carrying him around by the tooth and making him swim. She likes to pat and feed the pony, but absolutely will not sit on it for anything so it’s really more a toy for her to grow into.

My family came over in the afternoon and we did more presents and had an early dinner together that my mom kindly brought over and cooked for us – steak, cheesy scalloped potatoes and pomegranate pear salad with raspberry vinaigrette. We then thought we’d play cards, and I remembered that Santa forgot them for the stockings, and husband went out to get some so we could.

We had a really lovely Christmas, and hope that everyone else did too.

Stockings are the best part

Almost ready

I’m so excited to give Christmas this year and am trying somewhat unsuccessfully to reign myself in on gifts. K is getting only a few new gifts from us and everything else is handmade or bought used, but I also don’t want to overwhelm her with quantity and that’s my challenge.

She is getting this deer (calling her Snowdrop Deer instead of Dandelion for Christmas connotations) and an ornament version, this owl puppet (Hedwig, clearly), this book, this book and this book, these pjs (old navy black Friday clearance), and this Grimms blocks set from Wooden Wagon. I had planned to make her some custom books with pictures of family using old thrifted board books, but I don't think that project is going to make the deadline at this point.  

These tangled lights PJs just arrived from my black Friday order and I love them so much I wish I’d bought some for next year too.  

Preparations

I didn’t realize until this moment that my gift wrap theme this year was “lumberjack.”

Snow Day

We had a snow day on Friday that was exactly what I’ve needed. I had the day off already, so when it started snowing the night before and continued off and on all day Friday it just added to the coziness. K liked the snow, but hates having anything on her head so it was hard for her to handle having a hat or hood for more than a few minutes at a time. We had a lot of short trips outside, and enjoyed it from the windows (every window in the house has hand and nose prints at toddler level now). The first trip outside, she looked and pointed and repeated “wha da?” (what’s that) over and over.

She learned how to put ornaments on the tree herself - every time she gets one she smiles and claps and often also says “I di ih” (I did it). That said, we’re also really getting into a phase (it is a phase, right?) of testing boundaries constantly and the tree is becoming a big one. I thought we were in the clear after a week of having it up and playing with it and the ornaments gently but she’s taken to ripping the lights off and trying to run off with them. If we have any pine needles left on the bottom three feet of the tree  by Christmas I’ll be happy!

When we came in from the last trip out in the snow where it was coming down in great big fluffy clumps, she sat herself down by the tree, picked this book and opened to this page on her own - so cute! She studied that page for more than a minute (very rare). I think she got it that the book had snow and she had snow.