Christmas, Christmas, Christmas

This is the part where I go through our camera and post anything interesting or amusing that we've accumulated over the past week or so.

It was a busy week or so, too. Remarkably, as busy as it was, the holiday season this year paradoxically seemed to last forever while managing to go by in a flash. If I think back, it seems like it's been at least a year since Thanksgiving. Yet, at the same time, it seems like just a few days ago when we put the Christmas tree up. Weird. From the 24th-27th, though, this can easily be explained. Those are the evenings that Uncle Jeebes was staying with us--and all of those nights (and a few of the days) he and I spent fairly inebriated. And time spent drunk does have that strange way of seeming to fly by while taking forever. As for the rest of the season, I have no explanation.

This was a special Christmas season because, for the first time, Gabe was actually able to grasp the concept of Santa. He understood the "comes in the middle of the night to leave presents" thing. Last year, Santa was just some nebulous fat man who seemed to be everywhere. Gabe still loved him, because he loves old people, but he never really understood that Santa was coming to our house with presents on Christmas morning. This year he did and he loved all the little things that went along with it (like the half eaten cookie and partially drunk glass of milk on the table--but, mostly, he LOVED all the presents).

When he woke up yesterday, he said, "Did Santa come with more presents?" Ever the optimist. "No," Libby said. "It's going to be a whole year before Santa comes again." "Ohhh," he moaned. Then he brightened up slightly. "I'll check under the tree, just to make sure." When he didn't find any presents there, he didn't even get upset. Of course that had more to do with the fact that the giant bowl of Christmas candy is still under the tree and he started to stuff his face before we could tell him no, but there you have it.

Though we'd already been to, I don't know, ten other Christmas parties--maybe more, maybe fifty, I can't even remember, but I do know that we rarely in our own house in the evenings, and if we were, other people were in our house too--this was the night when Christmas officially started, at Nana and Poppa's. This present was the clear winner for Gabe this year. It's a Toy Story . . . factory . . . thing. It has a grabber crane thingy! Gabe had a meltdown wanting it early in December, so Mom and Dad got it for him. It is his favorite toy from Christmas.

Here is a picture of my armpit. You're welcome.

Dinner that night (Ah, Blogger, you are so wonderfully awful. Now you are underlining and refuse to let me change it. Fantastic). As Gabe does, he put all his foods together--blueberry muffing, homemade applesauce, mashed potatoes, and sausage. He went on to eat some of it. Yet he won't eat pizza. Makes one wonder.

Wonderful. It switched the color to blue up there when I tried to get rid of the underline and won't change it back. Yet, now we're back to black and bold. Excellent (that had a sarcastic ring to it, in case anyone missed that). Here's the picture of all of us with our favorite Christmas presents. My favorite present is down in the front, next to Gabe's factory. Can you see it?

Here's a (oh, great, back to blue and underlined again) priceless picture that accurately displays the only reason why anyone buys a Shake Weight. Hilarious. It's an awful piece of exercise equipment, but it sure makes for funny pictures. Because we're cheap bastards, the adults on my side of the family draw names and only buy one present, roughly $20, following a theme. This year was "As Seen on TV." The Shake Weight won the prize for Best in Show.

The next night, Christmas Eve, we spent with Libby's family (I'm not even going to try and change the color on this one. Screw you, Blogger). We didn't get many pictures (but two of the videos below are from that night). You can't see them very well because of the lighting, but Norah is wearing antlers. And drooling. Still. I'm not sure it's ever going to stop. More than likely, she will be the only child in middle school who has to wear a bib every day. Poor kid.

Gabe wearing (oh, great, back to normal, this is exciting now, it's like a stupid lottery where the prize, instead of being stoned by your fellow citizens is consistent font coloring) the crown from his Christmas Cracker. The Christmas Cracker is a tradition in much of the English speaking world, sent to us by Libby's folks. We don't use them here in the states because Burger King has a monopoly on the manufacture of all paper crowns. Crackers also contain really bad jokes--like the ones on a Bazooka Joe wrapper or that might appear on a popsicle stick.

James might not be drunk yet at this point (probably around 10:00 or so in the morning), but it would happen soon enough. This was pretty typical through James' stay. Gabe rarely left his side if he could help it.

The factory was the winner with Gabe, but this dollhouse won the day with Norah. I found it at the thrift store for $3. Win! We got her some sets of people and furniture to go in there, and she's been playing with it more or less non-stop for the past few days.

Behind the couch with Uncle Jeebes. That sounds like the name of a public access TV show. Gabe has really been making use of his space behind the couch since Christmas. He's been sneaking candy from the bowl back there to eat when nobody is looking. He has definite hoarder tendencies.

The booze. This was probably around noon on Christmas Day. By this point, these boxes are already missing two bottles of champagne (consumed), a bottle of Crown Royal (have gone), two bottles of red (on the counter so they didn't get too cold--we just left all the rest of this outside since there wasn't nearly enough room in the fridge), and two bottles of wine James gave as gifts. By the time Jamie left, some of the beer was all that was left out there. Read into that whatever you want because I don't have enough brain cells left to read much of anything.

A mask, given by Aunt Molly. These masks were awesome, but I think they were designed by molemen who didn't need to use their eyes. The eye holes weren't spaced properly, weren't big enough for people eyes, and didn't have any kind of stiff backing to keep the felt from sucking straight back into one's eyeballs, making it effectively impossible to open one's eyes. We made some modifications, though, and now Gabe can be a disco superhero just like he's always wanted!

Norah on her homemade blankie (also from Aunt Molly). This blanket is awesome and clearly NOT made by molemen.

Actually, the cheap sets of Legos that Libby bought Gabe might have been more popular than the factory. Christmas day, he spent nearly six straight hours sitting at his little desk in the office working on his Legos. The look on Jamie's face her is priceless, as all three of us adults had it at one point or another while trying to put together the vehicles these sets made. I have given up entirely on putting them together now. They take a little over a half hour of close attention to put together, and Gabe invariably breaks the end product in less than five minutes. Now he has a box full of very small Lego pieces to stick together in random shapes. And we step on them a lot. Hurray for Lego!

James modeling his new clothes. By this point in the day, we were well and truly drunk. Shortly after this, I took a short nap and woke up, at 3:00 p.m., with a hangover. I went on to get drunk and sober up one more time that day. Glorious.

Just to prove that we aren't entirely negligent parents. We DID get the kids out to play at least once over the holiday weekend. Well, not "at least" once. JUST once.

Video from Kent and Kathy's house (Libby's aunt and uncle). The kids were already wound for sound. The videos are pretty self-explanatory, just Gabe and Norah being dorks.

Apparently the "spinning until you fall down like a drunk" thing wasn't just Gabe. It must be a universal toddler thing. I would have thought for sure Norah would be more sensible. Guess not. Definitely still pretty funny.

And, finally, further proof that we got the kids some exercise. Or, at least, that they were chased around our yard for twenty minutes or so.