Christmas 2010

Well, we pulled off Christmas and it was just as good as we thought it would be. When Neil and I heard Tristan wake up this morning, we ran in, jumped on his bed, and yelled "Merry Christmas!" Tristan just laughed, jumped on my back for a piggy back ride, and yelled, "c'mon mom, let's ride the rails!" What a funny kid!

We let Tristan open his stocking before the Conways got here for breakfast, so he had some things to keep him occupied. Then it was time for presents. We had been working really hard this year to teach Tristan about what this really amazing holiday actually means. This meant that we cut out Santa to lessen the confusion about what we were really celebrating, and sharing with others. In an attempt to teach him to share when you have more of something than you need, we had to take it down to a two-year-old level. We made a ton of Christmas cookies and then talked about how we had so many that we needed to share a lot of them. We packaged them up and drove them around until we found homeless people begging at stop lights. Then we rolled down Tristan's window and let him give out the cookies and say, "Merry Christmas." He loved it, and most the the guys were really excited about homemade Christmas cookies this year.
Well, the other thing we have been talking and reading about is Jesus' birthday. Last night I put his manger scene in the living room but without Jesus in it. He noticed baby Jesus missing and I said maybe he would come tomorrow for his birthday. This morning as we started to open presents, I handed the first one to Tristan. It read:
To: The Conways
Love: God
When Tristan opened it (with his teeth) it was baby Jesus. He got excited and put him in the manger. I thought it was cute, but knew at two there was a fat chance that he got any of it. Later today he talked to Neannie on the phone. (not sure if you even understood him saying this, mom) My mom asked him what presents he got for Christmas and the first thing he said was "baby Jesus"... yeah!
We had a lot of fun opening the rest of our gifts, well Tristan had fun opening everyone's gifts! Nana and Gramps seemed to have a nice morning, but I know it was hard for both of them to be away from home for the first time in their lives for Christmas.

After Tristan's nap, we gave him the train table. We got the perfect gift JUST right! I don't think he believed us that it is now his table and it's not going anywhere. We had to drag him screaming to eat dinner, take a bath, and he was a little nervous to leave it to go to bed. Won't he be surprised when it's still here tomorrow morning!

It was a great day filled with great food, grandparents, a beautiful walk outside (due to no snow), and of course the matching PJs!!!