Aaron was fussy and crying before he even got out of bed. (The spot on his nose was from a plastic container he was covering his face with and pretending to drink from. He was walking around with it for a long time and the edge rubbed his nose pretty good.)
After getting some coffee, we went to the living room to open gifts. Usually we spend mornings in the dining room and since he was already out of sorts, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He hwanted nothing to do with opening presents. I think He was upset because the gifts were scattered on the coffee table where his "floor" puzzle normally is (that's the puzzle box he's holding onto.) We didn't have many gifts to open - Thom and I didn't really exchange gifts this year, although he did buy a set of books for Aaron and a food book for us to share. But I had bought 4 gifts for Aaron and he had gifts from our friends Biriz, Lon and Melissa and Aaron's Aunt Janine and Uncle Bruce.I opened one gift for him - a clacking pull alligator toy that I had gotten him - thinking once he understood the whole gift thing, he'd come around. Nope. He was so whiney and unpleasant, we decided to leave his gifts until later. It just wasn't any fun.
Fortunately, it wasn't a big deal to me. Somewhere along the line, Christmas went from being fun to being a chore. I loved Christmas when I was a kid and I know my parents went to a lot of trouble, putting up a tree, decorating, baking, buying gifts for 5 kids, then cleaning it all up afterwards. I only found out after college that my mom found the whole ordeal stressful. And I can understand why. We only put up a smal tree, and I only made two kinds of cookies, but I did buy gifts for 9 nieces and nephews, both of my parents, plus Aaron and I made gifts for my brother-in-law and it took a lot of time and effort. I was stressed out the days before Christmas finishing up everything. When you are a kid, Christmas is just about opening presents and eating cookies, so no wonder kids love it. For adults, it is a lot of work.
So I've decided that Christmas will be low-key for us, especially these early years when Aaron doesn't really care. I don't see any point in pushing it on him - he'll come around to it some day and we'll enjoy it when he does. I don't think Christmas should be stressful. Aaron will get toys and someday we'll do a stocking for him, but it won't be the boatloads of toys some kids get. I'm not doing Santa and there won't be 8 kinds of cookies or special towels just for Christmas or decorations in every room. Not that I don't like those things when I go to other people's houses. I love all the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas. But for me, it's not worth it.
My favorite part of Christmas is spending time with my family. I feel so fortunate to have my parents and all my siblings close by and to get to spend Christmas with them. And that's what I want Aaron's memories of Christmas to be - memories of spending time with his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, and his cousins.
My best memories of Christmas past are of my siblings and I waking each other up and then sitting at the top of the stairs being antsy since we weren't allowed to go down until my parents woke up. It was probably only 15 minutes, but it felt like hours.
After our unfortunate Christmas morning, we went over to my sister Theresa's for breakfast with her family. Once there, Aaron was fine, playing with his cousins and their toys. Theresa and Ernie make wonderful German pancakes served with lemon and powered sugar and Thom cooks up some applewood smoked bacon to go with it. After breakfast, we took Aaron home and put him down for a nap around noon. He was so tired, he went right to sleep.
When we woke up, we drove down to Grandma and Grandpa's. While we waited for everyone to arrive to open presents, we kept Aaron entertained with the piano and with some puzzles I found in their garage.
We managed to have all the siblings and kids there this year. Usually someone is with in-laws or Larissa and Christopher are with their mom, but this year we had all 21 of us. Once the gift opening started, it was pure chaos and I didn't manage to get any pictures after that. I will leave you with this family photo my dad took. >
P.S. The next morning, we finished opening Aaron's presents. In the dining room. He was in a much better mood, although still not that interested. We took some photos, but I'm in mismatched PJs with hair all over the place and didn't find any I was willing to post online.
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