Jacob's First Christmas

We had some trouble trying to get the Christmas tree down from the attic this year. So, a few days before Christmas, I ended up going out and buying another tree so that we could finally have one set up. Jacob was playing in the middle of the living room when I first took the pieces out of the box, but he immediately crawled over and sat down by the box and parts once I started assembling it. He's so adorable in the way that he just sits around taking things in. Every now and then, he would reach out and touch the branches or try to grab the labeling tags, but otherwise he sat quietly and watched me intently. Once the tree was put together, we admired it for a few minutes and then resumed playing.

I started decorating it the next day (Christmas Eve Day), and Jacob came over to supervise. The ornaments really piqued his curiosity, and he decided he wanted in on trying to decorate it. Just like with his books, he was very careful and gentle when he tried to hang one of them. He got it right up to the branch but just couldn't get it on there since the loop to hang it from wasn't open. I helped him put it on after letting him try a few times and then added a few more while he watched and stood at the rocking chair feeling the branches and looking at the lights.

It's been several years since we've had snow on Christmas, but the flakes started falling that day leaving us with four to five inches by Christmas morning. Jacob watched the snow fall through the sliding glass door from his highchair in the dining room as I fed him his lunch and got excited with me (flashing me a big grin) when I talked to him about it. I love how you can practically see the little gears turning in babies' heads when they're trying to process something new. He didn't have any kind of facial expression, but he was practically oblivious to the fact that we were trying to eat. He would open his mouth when he saw the spoon getting close, but he just stared out the door looking and looking.

We have a Santa-face wall decoration that Dave's adoptive mother sent us a few years ago. I showed it to Jacob (telling him "That's SANTA! Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas!") and then hung it on a wall opposite of the tree. Ever since then, whenever we say "Santa", his eyes go straight to that wall to look at the Santa face.... and then he smiles.

I placed a few Christmas-y stuffed animals on our stereo next to the entertainment center on Christmas eve in between wrapping presents and adding a few more ornaments to the tree. I put them out every year and didn't think anything of it that night, but Jacob noticed them as soon as I brought him into the living room. Something NEW! He gave an excited little grunt, and at first I had no clue what it was all about. He turned his head toward them and made a little "AAAAHHA!" noise. As soon as I realized that he had noticed the stuffed critters, I took him over to them and showed him each one. It's amazing that with all of the STUFF that we have around the house and with as much as we move stuff around... Jacob's observant enough to notice something like that.

When I was a kid, we always got to open one present on Christmas eve and then our stockings as soon as we got up on Christmas morning. I'm continuing this tradition with Jacob (even though most of the rest of my family doesn't do this anymore) and wanted to incorporate it with a new tradition of Christmas pj's. So, he got his pj's as his Christmas eve present (already washed by Mommy) and then I made a big scene out of his stocking on Christmas morning.

Me (gasping in mock surprise): "OOH, JACOB! LOOK! FROM SANTA!"
Jacob's eyes darted up to the Santa face on the wall.
Me (excitedly): "Look what Santa brought you! What's all THIS?"

I was hesitant about doing the whole Santa thing with Jacob (as I'm not religious and have mixed feelings about the commercialism/materialism that accompanies a lot of what Christmas "means"). Dave thought I was nuts and insisted that Jacob needs to have Santa in his life. So, here we are. :P

We went through his stocking together - me encouraging him to pull stuff out (which he's become an expert at over the past few months) of the stocking and talking about each thing. Santa got Jakey banana-flavored Baby Mum-Mums, a little stuffed monkey, a new set of stacking cups that can be used in the bathtub (each one has a different cut-out design on the bottom so water can spill through at different rates), an Elmo toothbrush and baby-safe toothpaste, and a tangerine. He hadn't tried tangerines yet at that point, but he was excited about the Mum-Mums. I let him try them out, and of course he loved them. We played for a while, ate breakfast, and then he napped while I started making a few dishes to take over to my mom's for Christmas dinner.

Dave took over Jakey-duty when he awoke from his nap, and I finished cooking. For the past umpteen years, I've searched for a different veggie/vegan recipe for a main dish for just about every Thanksgiving or Christmas. This year, I took the easy route and just made a Tofu-Spinach Lasagna along with the traditional (vegan) green bean casserole and a (vegan) apple pie. Dave tried to entice Jacob with the presents and helped him open a few more before we headed over to my Mom's.

My brother and his girlfriend drove up from "down south", and they cooked a few things and helped set up before we arrived. My mom had heart surgery just after Thanksgiving and was in the hospital for two weeks (after originally anticipating on being released after just five days due to two additional unexpected surgeries) afterward, so she wasn't able to cook and bake up a storm like she loves doing every year. With a combined effort, though, dinner was delicious.

After eating and chatting and laughing at, smiling at, and admiring Jacob and his cute little emerging personality, we gathered in the living room and took turns opening presents. Jacob slowly caught on to ripping the paper, but he was just as interested in the packaging as he was most of his gifts. He had never seen Styrofoam before, so he was very intrigued when he saw it in a box containing one of my mom's gifts. He got quite a few presents and has been enjoying several of them on a daily basis since bringing them home.

We stayed for a bit after exchanging gifts to have dessert and then brought Jacob home. My mom's house is just over a mile away, but Jacob was asleep in his car seat by the time we got halfway across town. Dave unlocked the door when we got home while I slowly unbuckled Jacob's seat beat and eased him out of the car. I was worried that he'd have a difficult night sleeping since he didn't get his afternoon nap and had been awake all afternoon and evening, but I think (if I remember right) that he slept soundly for hours until his usual 3-4 a.m. waking (when we bring him into bed with us).

Jacob's been obsessed with his Playskool Busy Ball Popper lately, so it took him a day or two to warm up to his new toys. He was perfectly content between the ball popper and his new toys, but he still hadn't finished opening his other gifts we had for him under the tree. So... Christmas was extended for a few days until he finally got around to opening everything.

His favorites of his new toys are a farm with shapes to sort and a stacking tower (silo) by Little Tykes and the small, squishy turtles from a mom-and-babies floating turtle bath set. He loves taking apart the silo and carrying the rings around in his hand while he crawls. He doesn't like it when we put it back together and will crawl over like a speed demon to take it apart again. The little turtles are perfectly sized to fit in his mouth and are apparently have just the right amount of squishiness to satisfy his frequent chewing urges. It only took a few days before he realized that several of the shapes from the farm AND the turtles will fit perfectly inside the opening of the ball popper. :P