Christmas 2010

The theme for this year's Christmas decorations was "things the kids can't reach." I decorated soon after Thanksgiving, but decided to put off putting up the tree until the last minute. The less time it was up, the less time I'd have to spend defending it from Hazel. This was also my first time doing an artificial tree (but we haven't gotten rid of our tree-watering stand yet--we may still have more real Christmas trees in our future).

 I knew Cora would love to help decorate the tree. A couple days before Christmas, after the girls were asleep, Geoff assembled the tree, I wired it to the wall and put the lights on, and I got out our unbreakable ornaments and a couple value-packs of shatterproof ornaments I had picked up. Needless to say, when Cora woke up in the morning she wanted to get started immediately. This picture of her decorating the tree is dark because it is pre-sunrise!

I was glad I'd gone with the unbreakable tree, because Hazel went at those ornaments like she was picking apples off an apple tree. By the time we took it down a week later or so you could see a definitely line of demarcation between what Hazel could reach and couldn't reach. 

Here they are on Christmas Eve--bathed and dressed in their new Christmas pajamas and ready for bed.

 

 

And here's the place after Santa's visit, ready for the girls in the morning.

A parenting milestone: this marks the first time Geoff and I slaved over assembling a toy on Christmas Eve; the play kitchen was a good team effort. 

Most of the breakable ornaments stayed packed away this year, but I put each of their "baby's first Christmas" ornaments next to their stockings. 

Note the empty plate--Santa has already eaten the pfeffernusse cookies that Cora left out for him (I actually baked a little this year for once).

This is also my first year doing any outside lights.

That giant mountain of snow is even bigger now in the beginning of February. It's been a very snowy winter even by Minnesota standards.

I plugged the lights into the back patio light socket and it was Cora's job to flip the switch inside to turn them on each evening. Here she is trying to flip the light switch and watch the lights at the same time:

Cora coming down the stairs Christmas morning! I wasn't sure why she was so hesitant but figured it out when she asked if Santa was still there!

Cora loves "crafts." And she's into butterflies right now--throughout December when she was asked what she wanted for Christmas she would say "a butterfly toy." 

This toy doctor kit came with a very realistic sounding toy pager. It was so realistic that it made Geoff jump to attention every time the kids set it off while playing with it. The pager has since "mysteriously" disappeared, though the girls still enjoy playing with the rest of the kit.

The play kitchen was marked to both girls--I thought Hazel would need to grow into it still, but in fact she has been the one primarily playing with it. I think her inner monologue goes, "This banana belongs in the fridge. No the drawer. No the fridge. No the drawer." And of course she needs to talk on the phone.

We had our customary breakfast of eggnog French toast and cranberry-apple compote and relaxed all day. I've never cooked Christmas dinner but we managed some turkey and stuffing.

For me, this was the first year ever that I didn't go to my parents' house at all on Christmas day. The kids and I did drive down on the 26th for a few days, though, so we didn't miss it by much. It was definitely a successful Christmas on our own and we had a great time. I think this one will stand out as the first Christmas Cora enjoyed in a kid way rather than in a baby way. One month after Christmas, Cora was still making us sing "Silent Night" to her as her bedtime song rather than "Twinkle, Twinkle."