As we are closing in on Christmas 2005, I wanted to put some thoughts down about last Christmas, aka Tristan's First Christmas. He was 8 1/2 months old and just learned to walk with assistance. Christmas Eve we had my dad over for an early dinner. He came with a carload of gifts for Tristan. It took about 6 trips to the car to bring the bounty of toys in the house. For the next couple of hours we watched Tristan gleefully tear thru his gifts. Later that evening my in-laws came over for dessert. We had a nice evening. We took pictures in front of the tree, stuffed our faces and marveled at the baby.
Christmas morning Tristan opened his gifts from Mommy and Daddy (aka 'Santa Claus'). It was lame- an assortment of books, a dvd, and a couple toys. Took all but a few minutes to zip thru them. Lame. In our defense: It was an expensive year and Christmas is not really about the gifts anyway. (Ok, Christmas is ALL about the gifts... so at the end of day I told Tristan ALL the cool gifts were really from Mommy and Daddy. All bases covered.)
Christmas afternoon we picked up my Dad and headed down to my cousin Sandy's. We introduced Tristan to my side of the family for the first time. It was a happy day and Tristan seem to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the jovial crowd. We left my cousins with another mountain of gifts for Tristan and then headed over to Husbands brothers house. We got lost on the way so we were in the car for a looonnnnng time and the party was pretty much over when we got there. The late hour did not stop the in-laws from tossing Tristan to the floor where they took turns pelting him with beautifully wrapped presents. It went on for hours. He tried to crawl away a few times to no avail. Me and husband were powerless, we could only sit there and watch (I took pictures and husband got video)as our helpless baby disappeared under 500 sq ft of wrapping paper. (Does a baby really need a new outfit for every day and a jacket to match each outfit? Of course they do!)
As for the outfit of the day: Tristan looked absolutely adorable in his emerald green plaid dress slacks, gray button down shirt and green velvet vest.
Celebrating Christmas with a child makes all the madness of the holidays worth it ten-fold. My house looked like ToysRus and Old Navy exploded in the living room but it's all good. For me and the husband, the best gift of 2004 was having our baby home to celebrate. If he wasn't home, we would of just travelled to Guatemala to spend the holidays with him there. Missing his first christmas was not an option.
Note to Tristan: though the words 'emerald green plaid dress slacks' paints a scary picture in your mind, do not be alarmed, mommy has pictures to prove the outfit was stylish and festive without being obnoxious. I was briefly tempted to dress you head to toe in a red 'santa's little helper' outfit but, you my son, are just too dignified for that silliness.
