The Six Days of Christmas (with one breather day)

Oh yeah. Six full days. Giuliana is aaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllll stocked up for toys. And new clothes (All the right size! yay!) and jammies, and socks. She's good to go. And, thanks to Ryan, her new sneaker that I lost on Christmas Eve Eve was found and is safe and sound in her closet.

So, here was our holiday agenda:

The First Day of Christmas: Christmas Eve Eve at our friends' (Kate and Nick) house. Great Party! G loved the cookies that Kate slaved over. She went to sleep pretty early, but mommy and daddy had a lot of fun.

The Second Day of Christmas: Christmas Eve. Blogged about already. See below.

The Third Day of Christmas: Christmas Day. G doesn't know that you are supposed to wake up EARLY on Christmas. I, however, was awake at 5am because I was soooooo excited for G to open her stocking and to see what Santa brought her!! I contained myself until 7am when I just had to go in and wake her up!

Here's the morning festivities.



Next it was off to John's mom's house. We were there all day. It was craziness. I had a Kitchen Aid Christmas! I am the proud owner of a new, black, Artisan series mixer. With a wisk!, and a bread hook! and a mixing paddle! and a splatter guard! yippee!! And, Gina's fiance (ooo la la), Jerry, bought us this wonderful Italian cookbook that I am in love with. John got his loop pedal that he had been wishing and hoping for. And G? Toys. Lots and lots of Toys. Her favorite from this day, I think, is her Singing Elmo and the Talking Pizza. It's cute, but it only sings ONE SONG. Over and over. It was a love fest of family and food and G survived without melting. It was a good day.


The Fourth Day of Christmas: The Day After Christmas, or Boxing Day if you want to be all chi-chi British. This is the day we have decided to traditionally celebrate Christmas with my parents. More kitchen madness on my part in the morning. Not too bad, just a cheese and cracker tray and deviled eggs. Only I discovered that I don't own a deviled egg tray. I thought I did. I had this vision of this white tray with a gold border that I inherited when my grandmother passed away and I got a lot of her entertaining ware. Turns out my vision was of my mother's deviled egg tray that she still very much owns and is in possession of. So, there was a slight (major) deviled egg landslide on the drive over and we had a deviled mess. Luckily, I was very bright and wrapped the whole plate, so it was contained within the saran wrap. Hey, they still taste good.

So, anyway, we had a leisurely lunch and then got to the present-fest. John and I both were given digital picture frame keychains so we can annoy everyone we meet with many, many pictures of G. My parent's bought us a nice new rocking chair for G's bedroom, as the one we have in there is falling apart. And Miss G, her favorite toy of the day is a tie between the dinosaur drop and roar and a huge bag of mega-blocks. Oh, and my mom loved her birdhouses.


Unfortunately, the evening ended badly for John. He had a major attack and was in horrible pain for about an hour. We decided to call the ambulance several times, but then changed our minds because after 14 months of this, 3 hospitalizations, and about a dozen ER trips we know that absolutely nothing will be accomplished by heading to the ER. They will make us wait for hours. They will draw blood. They may order an ultrasound or CT scan. And they will find nothing other than slightly elevated liver enzymes. And they will "be kind" and give him something for the pain, only it will be fentanyl, which we will tell them doesn't work for John. And they will insist that that is what he should get. And it won't work. And then we will go home with instructions to call his doctor in the morning. Or something like that. So, though he couldn't even walk from my parent's living room to the car without collapsing to the floor, we went home. My parent's followed us home to make sure that John got inside ok and to help me carry in gifts. They really love us.

The Fifth Day of Christmas: The Day After The Day After Christmas. This day was spent with John's extended family downstate in Rock Hill (Monticello area). We drove John's dad down with us and that was fun. He really is a funny guy. There was more food, more gifts, a visit from Santa (after Santa had a few shots of Scotch and I helped him disguise his eyebrows with baby powder and a makeup brush) and lots of family. Again, no major melts on G's part, so, all good. She is not a fan of Santa so far, though. Hmmmm...she didn't like Grandpa for a long time either. Coincidence?




The Sixth Day of Christmas: The Day After we took a break for a day and just stayed home and played with toys and took a walk The Day After The Day After Christmas. Today was a pretty low-key Christmas. John and G and I went to Target this morning to spend too much money. We were seriously low on diapers and milk, and by seriously low I mean G was wearing her very last diaper and there was no milk in the house. And I needed a few grocery things. And I wanted to get a tub for G's mega-blocks and a couple of laundry baskets to store all those toys in. And she needed some more 18 month jammies. And some baby wash cause we were out. And we decided to pick up a few movies to enjoy on our break. And I needed a new book. Thank god for gift cards.

Later in the day some friends of ours came over for lunch and to give G a Christmas present. She got a book and a fun sled, along with a couple of other things. She loves that sled. We had to drag her around the house in it because there is no snow. She also sat in it for, like, 10 minutes, which is much longer than she willingly sits anywhere. It, too, was a really good day.


And that, my friends, was our insane holiday, full of tons of love and family. Just as it should be. Oh, and great food! That never hurts. How was yours?