The 2012 Christmas...aka Baby's First Christmas

Ah to be so wide eyed innocent!
How blessed he is to be having his first Christmas in such a warm and loving place.
All was joy for him...he is too young to want or understand anything more than his own most basic needs.

So it began...with Christmas Eve.
It snowed and snowed and snowed all day long.
Jeff picked up our traditional order of tamales around one; we met up at his place to eat the hot treats with occasional tears from the really hot guacamole he made using chilies from the Mexican market nearby.
(Note to other such gringo shoppers:  Mexican market chilies are on an entirely different heat scale than chilies from typical American chain markets!)
I decided purple was the right color choice as Advent drew to a close.

Rachel wound up wearing purple too; we did a matchy thing!
Note that Jeff and Luke sported matching plaid.
A few gifts were opened then we went to the Cathedral for the 4 pm Carol Service.
The snow was still coming down hard.
Bernie still is lame from his surgery.
We all piled out of the car at a curb and let Jeff drive it away to try to find parking.
The Cathedral has thirty steps up to the door, sloshy snowy stone steps.
Hmmmm....
Rachel carried Luke, Bernie winced and grimaced and eventually we got inside.
It was ten minutes into the service by then and there was standing room only.
After standing through seven stanzas of "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel"  (sung so beautifully it was like a taste of heaven)  Bernie was past his pain threshold.
We moved into the small side chapel where we could sit for a bit, then we tackled the stairs to get back to street level, with Jeff racing to get the car again.
Next year perhaps the entire service will be enjoyed.
We can hope.

The grandkitties were pleased to have us back again.
Sitting beside a warm fire suited us just fine, then Jeff and Rachel left for a dinner with friends and Bernie and returned to our house for some serious knee icing.
His knee was swollen almost double in size from our Cathedral outing.
:-(
The good news was that my Dad had been able to go home from the hospital that evening.
He had begun to run a fever three days earlier, and when he collapsed while attempting to walk to the bathroom, my mom had to call 911.
A trip to the emergency room and loads of tests showed that he had a bacterial bone/blood infection.
This was very serious news and for awhile surgery on an open wound on his scalp was considered, but the antibiotics began to work and so that risky procedure was avoided.
Prayers were raised and answered.
A former Sunday School student of my parents wound up being his nurse.
Sweet grace from on high.
He spent his 89th birthday in the hospital; was released on Christmas Eve and will be on a drip for five weeks to knock out the infection.
He told us it was NOT a Merry Christmas this year.
Me...I was glad he survived the worst of the infections issues.

The next day, Christmas, dawned clear and bright.

The birds swarmed the trees and feeders, trying to gobble up enough food to make up for the day hunkered down during the snowfall.

We had Christmas breakfast at our house; mulled cider, cranberry orange waffles and egg-bacon cups.
Didn't manage to get a picture but it was a lovely set table made even more lovely with the sweetness of a baby pounding on his high chair tray as we ate.
Then we opened  more gifts and enjoyed just being together.

Christmas Night we met up at Jeff's house again.
Someone was taking a late nap when we arrived.
He seemed ready to take on another round of Christmas!

We had gotten Luke a red Rocking Moose; Jeff had acquired the reindeer sweater for his boy.
The combination was just perfect!

While Jeff and Rachel finished making a masterful meal, I helped out by holding the baby.

Kissing the boy was an on going activity!

Getting a good family picture took a few tries.

And more kissing went on...he looks a little done with the mushy stuff by now doesn't he?

I was so happy to be having this picture taken; so happy that I was not needing to race to San Diego to meet the medical emergency...

More kisses....

Of course our first grandcat Meowsie got loved on too.

As did his brother Cheeto.

I got down on the floor with the creeping baby who was pulling himself along in the classic "wounded soldier" on his tummy crawl.

OK...I have to admit taking pictures on the floor is great fun.

I just followed him around and let him explore his world.

It has been many years since I viewed a Christmas tree from the floor.

I wonder if he wonders why it is attached to the tree with a string.

Now I bought him a sock monkey jack-in-the-box thinking he would either laugh or cry at the surprise monkey  "pop".
Instead he took the "pop" without a single blink or expression change.

He was quite fixated on figuring out how that crank thing worked though.

Nope, that doesn't do it...

Trying again with the fingers...

Seriously, why doesn't this thing work?

I know it has something to do with this thingamabob...

If only I could make it work....

Nuthing.
I've got nothing here.
Someone want to help the boy out?

Instead we put him into his Command Center.
He has discovered his command center commands absolutely nothing.

And that when we are eating he thinks he should have something to eat too.
An apple slice kept him happy for a little while.
Then we switched it out for different apple slice.

 

Eventually the Christmas sweater came off and jammies went on and off Luke went to bed.
Cheeto sat as if to say "So Christmas is over?"
For now...at least Christmas Day was done.
Onward we go for the exciting next 12 days!

It is snowing like crazy again.
Thinking it is time for another snow shoe outing....
Might just do that almost every day!