Caroline's First Christmas

Well Christmas has come and gone and I'd say Baby's First Christmas was quite a big success, on all levels. I'm so glad Caroline and I were able to go back to Baton Rouge a bit early and see her new GI and have the endoscopy done. We are still waiting on the biopsy results (quite a bit of lag time due to the holidays) but I'm hopeful that we'll get more answers soon.

Christmas Eve was spent visiting with friends and frantically coordinating a last-minute church schedule change, thanks to Caroline's late afternoon nap. Such is life with a baby. Luckily we were able to coordinate with all family members and somehow we all made it there on time! I was so glad to be home in BR attending my church's Christmas Eve service, especially since this time last year I wasn't sure if we'd be able to! And of course Caroline was perfectly well behaved. She looked so cute in her little red Christmas dress! 

After church we went back to my mom's house and put Caroline to bed while we ate dinner and exchanged gifts with cousins/aunts & uncles. After everyone left my mom and I began the real fun...setting out Caroline's toys from Santa! We unboxed and displayed all her goodies, set up the catepillar tunnel, stuffed her stocking with books and small trinkets. I remember how much my sister and I absolutely loved discovering our toys from Santa on Christmas morning, so I was thrilled to be able to recapture that sense of joy and excitement with my daughter on her first Christmas. 

Having a kid truly makes you feel like a kid yourself again on Christmas morning. I was so excited to bring her in the living room and watch her play with all her new toys. She was curious about the caterpillar and immediately headed for him, but wasn't too keen on crawling through him. Oh well. We'll stick him in the closet and try again in a few months. Christmas in July! Everything else was quite well-received though and she spent time exploring each new item before moving on to something else. 

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Winnie went around the room and methodically confiscated any and all stuffed animals within reach. Poor pug...this is the first year we didn't have a stocking full of toys for him. He was a good sport about it all though, and even donned a festive red bow for the day.

Whaddya mean this isn't for me?

After Caroline had thoroughly examined each of her Santa presents we exchanged gifts with my mom, sister, and Mama. To say we are crazy about Christmas is an understatement....it is truly a spectacle to behold, hard to comprehend if you haven't witnessed it every year for your entire life as I have. Bill thinks we've all lost our minds. I'm sure baby Jesus in the manger would weep for the number of trees cut down just to provide the mountain of wrapping paper that is torn off and discarded. But isn't there something in the Bible too about how the Lord loves a cheerful giver? We get an A+ in that department. From birdhouses to heirloom family portraits to bike helmets to microwave ovens to bathtub books...it was all joyfully unwrapped on Christmas morning. 

After the present frenzy died down Caroline went down for a nap and Bill and I loaded up the car to head to his family's. We looked worse than the Griswolds headed to Wally World. There was not a single.square.inch of space in that car. But somehow we were able to stuff it all in and head down to New Orleans for the Renton family seafood Christmas extravaganza. We attempted to get a decent picture with the grandparents and the great-granchildren but of course that's like asking all the stars in the sky to form a perfect alignment. Ha!

We did however manage to get a decent 4 generation Renton picture with Caroline. We are so fortunate that we've been able to get a 4 generation picture with both Bill's side of the family and my side of the family. What a lucky girl!

In true Louisiana Christmas style we were delayed by severe thunderstorms in getting back to Mandeville that night, so we only were able to give Caroline a bath and put her to bed...we postponed Renton family presents until the next day. I'm sure that was quite all right though...baby girl was exhausted! She was such a trooper with all the driving and packing and unpacking and sleeping in strange places. Even though she did remarkably well all things considered, I know next year Christmas will be different. We simply can't keep doing the crazy Christmas runaround once she gets older and really understands Santa. We need to be in our own home, starting our own new Christmas traditions. It will be so tough to put an end to Christmas as we've always known it in Louisiana, but I guess it's time to accept that Christmas isn't about me or us anymore...it's about her. And thankfully both Bill's brother and sister live here in Houston too, so hopefully we can all band together next year and hunker down in the lone star state. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join us!!