Christmas 2016

by Jenn - 5:05 PM

So, I've adopted a little "better late than never" attitude on this one because Christmas was forever ago, but it was Duke's first and I'm not about to let that slide by without putting some words on the screen.

But to be fair, it's not totally over, so I might plead that one too. This year, with one side of Ry's family, we elected to skip the gifts and rent a cottage. This weekend we'll power pack that house with kids, games, booze and Doritos and kick a maybe new tradition.

Most of the kiddos on that side are getting to be grown ups, and so it's a little dumb to still exchange gifts with a $20 limit. It's like, here have this $20 gift card -- oh thanks, and here's one for you. And basically you just exchanged twenty bucks, except you also told them where to spend it. Personally, I prefer the Bloody Mary breakfasts and late night Cards Against Humanity.

Anyway, that's next weekend. Let's talk Christmas Day.

***

Little Duke man has no idea what the eff is going on, but he does like the crinkle sound of wrapping paper so he was just about as happy as a gopher in soft dirt. His mom was too -- also I talk about myself in third person, I guess -- because his closet got exponentially more filled. I actually surprised myself by not losing my mind when I cleaned up his newborn and 3month baby clothes earlier this week, because there's so much cool new stuff for him to wear. I just folded the tiny little things, parked it in a box, and imagined the next baby wearing it. Makes it easier, you know? Also gives my husband heart attacks.

Speaking of clothes, there was some NSFW new items in our closets this year:

And some very SFW festive footwear.

I would just like to take a moment to share with you that for the first time in my 4-day weekend, this being the very end of it, my infant is in the middle of what has been a full two hour nap, I've got a clean house and a very full percolator. It's like God himself condones this blog post.

Anyway, moving right along to one of my favorite pictures from the weekend. No caption because I'm not that clever and basically what can you even say to spice this picture up?

Now, Duke had just about had it by, oh, noon? Seriously, all the passing around got him pretty fired up. Everyone wants to hold him, obviously, and equally as obviously, he wants to be held by one lady only.

Oh yeah, shoot. Sorry if I fooled you. I meant his cousin Hayden.

Spicy little character, no?

***

I want to mention just briefly that for no discernible reason, I could not get it together this year for christmas. Like, I just didn't get into it. I put up my tree, but never pulled out the ornaments. I didn't wrap single gift until the day we opened them. I hardly even decorated my house. I just couldn't pull it together and feel the magic. But I did feel the warm gooey joy of Christmas emotions with some really sentimental gifts.

And trust me, I get how vapid it sounds to be like "I didn't care about Christmas until someone gave me presents!" but seriously, Ryan got me all kinds of don't be fooled by the rocks that I got when he gave me a gorgeous sapphire ring. It's Duke's birthstone (and his, he keeps reminding me) and my mother-in-law gave me an equally loved necklace with Duke's name engraved in it. Just stick me with a fork because I am DONE.

The baldy in my arms was really into the box, and the baldy in the background made both pieces of jewelry. And the becoming-a-baldy not pictured has my heart for life for giving me so much to be grateful for.

Love, a home, Shaq Attaq in our kitchen, our little guy, our family. Speaking of them --