Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas 2009

We had a lovely mellow Christmas at home. We invited Jared's parents over for breakfast. I made an egg casserole and Jared had decided a couple of weeks ago that he would be in charge of the sweet side of the meal, meaning on Christmas Eve he braved the local mall and got a 1/2 dozen Cinnabons. Yum, Yum! We sat and enjoyed conversation and laughed at the boys adoration for their cinnabons. Then it was time for the "big reveal" (borrowing a HGTV phrase). Nani and Papa had bought the boys a HUGE train set and Jared set it up the night before and covered it with blankets. We sat them on the couch and pulled back the covers. They jumped off before we could blink and played with it the. rest. of. the. day.

You may think that I am exaggerating but truly. They played the entire morning while we essentially begged them to open more gifts. They cried at our requests and said "No, play with trains". This went on for 2 hours and finally we started telling them what the presents were hoping that they would be interested. It went like this "Hey guys, we got you a little people airport, want to open it?" It was kind of funny but it didn't persuade them. We finally forced them into opening stockings and eventually opening a couple more gifts at which point I mentioned to Jared that we should put a couple away for their b-day because they obviously had enough toys to play with and he said lets just put the rest away. So, that is what we did. There are 4 Christmas wrapped gifts in the basement waiting for April.

They took a "train break" to eat lunch, nap and finally to turn in for the night but other than that they spent every waking moment playing trains. I would say it was a good investment since we found the set on Craigslist and we didn't actually make the investment! ;) So this year every picture is of them playing with trains pretty much. I also had a headache so even though I enjoyed the day more than I probably ever have you will find no family pic or picture of the boys by the tree or even opening gifts because by the time they finally did the gift opening point we were all kind of "over it". :) So that was our mellow Christmas here at our house. We feel very thankful for our little family and are enjoying all of the extra time with Jared who still has almost another week off. YAY!

Jared and I also turned into Scrooge the minute the boys went down for nap and drug the stinkin' tree out to the curb. We LOVE a real tree and are very into the lights, decor, etc. but this years tree was the driest tree we have ever seen. I have NEVER cleaned up so many pine needles in.my.life. We are thrilled to have our living room back and the boys barely noticed it was gone! Buh-bye tree you will not be missed!

09e

al


7 comments:

Stephanie said...

Tanner got the same train set. he loves it. Sounds like the boys had a great day. I had to laugh at you guys taking the tree down. We usually wait, but this year I was ready to get rid of the mess and claim the much needed space. :)

Alicia said...

what is it about trains that just fascinates little boys?! my kids did the same thing! we got them a few new pieces to their thomas the tank engine set and they were just sucked right in!! glad you had a great Christmas! :)

John Deere Mom said...

I am so with you on getting rid of the tree! So glad to have it all put away for the year!

LauraC said...

Our Christmas was like that last year, they wanted to play with presents so we just let them! This year they were also low-key so we let them take all day to open presents.

Happy new year!!

Sari said...

Man I'm envious. We have that train set and not only are they constantly breaking it apart, both accidentally AND intentionally, but they shove each other out of the way and fight over space. Glad it worked out for you though! :)
And thank you for your input on the big boy beds. If we do it, it will be forced upon them, NOT bc they're ok with that. That doesn't help me :(

Liz said...

I hear you on the gifts--we had to beg them to open more of them too. THey were happy with the first gift they opened. We could have left it at that. That Thomas stuff is sooo expensive. I think I may hit up Craigslist myself for it. Glad it was a nice Christmas despite your headache.

MommyLydia said...

I ended up opening the last few of my sons' gifts :( And this was after he had opened gifts ALL day, then immediately wanting to play with each one.

He has lots of relatives that LOVE him. but this means that he gets really overwhelmed at gift giving occasions.