With all the stress that goes along with it!
I have to confess that I'm a little Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I find the holidays stressful, too materialistic, too rushed, the list goes on and on. I hate that it takes sometimes MONTHS to get ready for Christmas for it all to be over in a matter of hours. It's just not fair I tell you! Never mind all the family stress that goes along with Christmas.
This year is a little different. I'm dying to see Emilie on Christmas morning open her presents and play with the wrapping paper. I think it will be so exciting. We have one present in particular that I know she will just love, and I think she is just at the perfect stage developmentally for it as well, so I think she will really get a lot of use out of it. At the same time I dread Christmas dinner at my parents small home. There will possibly be about 17 people in my parents townhouse. The entire main floor is going to be transformed into a huge dining room, and their basement is a giant storage area, so is absolutely unusable. Being that Emilie is now a lean, mean, crawling machine, I am super stressed about this.
To make matters even more stressful my mother-in-law has decided that she is allergic to our cat this year and will be unable to make it for Christmas dinner. Normally I would just say it's her loss and rejoice that I don't have to put up with her eccentricities overnight, we now have Emilie, and I feel it's important for her to see both sets of grandparents for the holidays. Sigh, so I'm being the bigger person, and I suggested to Andre that we pack up everything but the kitchen sink and drive to their place for dinner on Christmas Eve. It should be a gigantic pain in the ass, and I will no doubt spend the entire visit trying to make sure Emilie doesn't get into something she shouldn't, but that's what the holidays are for right?
We did do some fun things though, starting with a little photo shoot with a local photographer. Considering the price (only $40) I am happy with the images. They looked great on our photo Christmas card, so that is a plus. Emilie would not smile at.all the entire time we were with the photographer, and I felt really disappointed when we left, but I think they turned out well regardless. Here are some of the shots that we had taken:
Pictures two, three, and five were used on our Christmas cards this year, which are currently sitting on my dining room table waiting to be written out and mailed sometime this weekend. I am sooooo behind this year.
Last weekend we went to my church's annual Breakfast with Santa. I had helped as a server in the past, and it was something I always thought would be fun to do once I had a family of my own. It was, and we ended up getting some great shots with Santa with Emilie, and Emilie and Joshua. Here are a few:
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| Emilie bored with breakfast, wanting to see Santa. |
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| Checking him out. |
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| Apparently very happy with her new story book. |
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| Emilie and Santa. |
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| Emilie, Santa, and Josh |
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| Making sure Josh realizes how cool this is. |
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| Josh with Santa |
