Christmas Report

For the first time we had Christmas morning here in Austin, instead of in Houston. This was also the first year we stayed up late as parents to assemble "Santa" gifts for Dada.

Dada's big presents were a wooden kitchen play set (from GranJudy), delivered as an Ikea-style flat pack, and a wooden tree doll house (from Grandpa Bill). Both required assembly.

In breaking with tradition, I chose to do the assembly sober, which made the work go more quickly but took away the angry, desperate edge that one normally associates with late night Christmas eve. We didn't even have any missing parts or tool-related injuries and we were in bed well before midnight. Bor-ing.

Dada is very much about process and not yet so focused on the getting aspect of gift-getting occasions. On Christmas morning she got up relatively late and came downstairs. The first thing she went for was the stack of her own books that she had individually wrapped in the days prior. The magnificent big gifts under the tree were of only minimal interest at first. But, once all the wrapped things had been unwrapped she turned her attention to the tree house and the play kitchen and declared them both fun and engaging.

After present opening, we had a nice breakfast of homemade biscuits, farmers' market bacon, and freshly-laid eggs, then packed as quickly as we could in order to get to Houston in time for Christmas dinner at Boo's house (and another gift opening free-for-all).

We made it to Boo's house in good time, opened our presents, and had a very nice Christmas dinner with Boo, Julie's brother Tom, Boo's friend Bill, his son John and his family (Jeanie, Andrew, and Mathew), his daughter Nora, and Robin, the daughter of one of Boo's long-time neighbors (who was, unfortunately, not feeling well enough to come to dinner).

After dinner we all watched the kids play Super Mario Galaxies on the Wii (which I had brought from Austin) and then moved the party to Nora's fiance Kevin's mother's house, where they were hosting a dessert party. Keven's mother's husband's sons had gotten Guitar Hero I and II for Christmas so Eliot spent a good bit of the evening showing those kids how its done while Dada played with the boys and Julie got to have an evening of adult conversation.

The next several days were spent mostly taking it easy and trying to stay away from shopping centers (although we did take Dada to the local mall where there is a carousel and an indoor playscape).

On Friday night we went back to Kevin's mother's house for a party celebrating the engagement of Kevin and Nora. More adult conversation, more Guitar Hero.

Saturday we came back to Austin in time to celebrate Dada's birthday....