Christmas with the In Laws

Late Saturday morning, Carder seemed to be feeling quite a bit better.  We loaded up the car and headed down state to my in-laws house for our Christmas celebration with them.

Carder ended up taking about a 20 minute nap on the way to their house and that was it.  He spent the afternoon playing with his Papaw (Great Grandpa), Grandparents, and Aunt Sarah.  He also spent quite a bit of time talking about and enjoying the ornaments on my MILs tree.*

Even though I anticipated a very cranky child, he did great with very few meltdowns.  By early evening, he was exhausted.  He ended up going to bed quite early.

On Sunday morning, we fed him breakfast and then everyone was excited to see him opening their gifts.  He got a push/ride toy from Papaw.  His gift from Aunt Sarah was some cars in a carrier, a Litt.le People Farm Stand, and a book.  Grandad and Grandma got him a Yo Gab.ba Gab.ba backpack on wheels, a smaller backpack, a sit-n-spin, and some other small toys.**

 

 

We had a wonderful time visiting with Derek's family.  After Christmas dinner on Sunday evening, we took a few family pictures and then loaded up the car and headed home.

* Since we weren't sure how Carder would handle the tree, we only put our shatterproof balls on the tree this year.  He loved looking at all of the miscellaneous ornaments that she hung on her tree.  He also did very well with not pulling them off and trying to play with them - so much so that I completely regretted my decision to only hang the shatterproof ornaments.  Next year we will include the miscellaneous ornaments on our tree as well.

**  I have to admit - I had a bit of trouble with the gifts from the grandparents. There were some unwrapped gifts in a stocking and one of the gifts was listed as "From Santa". I didn't say anything to them because he is too young to read and it wasn't explained to him that these things were "From Santa" so it really wasn't worth starting an argument - this year.  I grew up that Santa visited our house on Christmas Eve - Santa didn't come to my grandparents homes to leave gifts for me there.  And if we don't put a stop to this before he is old enough to understand, we will later have to explain why Santa brings him gifts at one set of Grandparents and not the other.  And - let's be honest here, damn it - I am a greedy bitch.  We waited all of these years to become parents and "be" Santa, they already had their chance and shouldn't take away our fun...***  Derek and I had a discussion in the car that it was his responsibility to tell this to his parents.

***And if my MIL reads this - Derek was supposed to tell you and sorry you heard it here first.  But, please - no more gifts from Santa.  And that goes for the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  You want to be responsible for leaving Lucky Charms from a Leprechaun on St. Patty's Day, fine by me.  But leave the biggies to us.