Ow, My Wallet!

This year was the first year that we’ve spent Christmas at home. Usually we end up going to Michigan, but with a 6 week old boy and, especially, a 3 year old, we thought it best to stay home. And we had a really nice time.
On Christmas Eve, Ellie could hardly contain her excitement. We went downtown, sorta, to watch “Santa” waterskiing on the Potomac River. We had to watch from the opposite side of the river because it was so crowded. Oh well. Ellie had more fun watching the planes. We went to the “family mass” at church later that evening. They had a choir singing, but Ellie, having played with her Little People nativity all month, kept gasping in amazement every time anyone said “Jesus.” After church, we went out for the traditional Dauernheim Christmas Eve dinner: mexican food. We went to our old favorite, Tequila Grande. All was very good. We came back home, and watched a bit of Norad’s Santa tracking site before we convinced Ellie that she had to go to sleep so that Santa would come. She actually went to sleep surprisingly quickly, and so did we.
The next morning, I was the one who couldn’t stay asleep. Ellie eventually got up around 8am, and had no interest in presents. She was still a bit groggy, to be fair, and eventually got excited as we started into her stocking. She helped Evan open all his presents too. Thankfully, most things seem to fit her and Evan, and even me and Lisa, so we won’t have to brave the return lines. We managed to get through all the gifts in a couple of hours, with only one or two distracting gifts that had to be taken out of boxes and played with before continuing. The Little People Airplane and Mr. Potato Head seem to be the big hits this year. Lisa thanks everyone who got her slippers. She goes through them pretty quick, but she should be set for a while now. And I got lots of pants! Yep, I’m officially getting old when that’s the most exciting thing I got for Christmas.
We spent most of the day lying around in our pajamas, playing with Ellie’s new toys. My knees are seriously hurting from sitting cross-legged most of the day. We also took part in another Dauernheim Christmas tradition: no cooking on Christmas. We snacked on frozen hors d’ouevre type things all day, and partook of some fine glühwein. If you’ve never had glühwein, you must try it sometime. A Merry Christmas indeed!
So now, I’m back at work (a wasteland this week) and awaiting the arrival of Lisa’s parents on Thursday night. Hopefully it will be a nice quiet week.