Unfortunately, we did not get our new camera in time to record our Christmas celebration with Carl's mom, sister, and her boyfriend, Ryan, last Sunday. You can check out some pics from that night on Ingrid's blog. We had a really nice time, and I think that the dinner was pretty successful. For anyone interested, the menu was as follows:
Lily has enjoyed all of her presents this holiday season, but the children's digital camera that Ingrid gave her that night has been one of the big highlights. Perfect timing as well, since we have learned our lesson with adult digital cameras and three-year-olds. Lily really enjoyed her visit with Grandma Deetz (Mee-maw), and we were very happy and thankful that she made the trek here from northern Illinois. We hope to return the favor and visit there sometime in '09.
On Christmas Eve night, we hosted my dad's side of the family at our house. I was really happy that we were able to host because many of my relatives had not seen our house yet. As usual, it was a very nice evening of catching up with everyone. The pictures of the night are in the "Meyer Christmas" slideshow below. (Sorry to overload with slideshows this year - it was just the easiest format and hopefully more entertaining than viewing 20 pictures in a row from each event.)
My favorite memories from that night included Lily and Gannon (my cousin Andrew's son who is 5) going off together upstairs and watching some holiday cartoons in our bed (their idea). They were just two peas in pod, giggling and enjoying themselves to no end. And, the most priceless memory: During mass, my mom asked Lily if she was excited that Santa was coming the next morning. She looked at my Aunt Dee's husband, Tom, and said, "He's here right now." At dinner, Lily purposefully sat next to Tom (in a room full of people that she surely did not remember - without me or Carl) and then...climbed onto his lap and proceeded to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. I'm not sure that anything can top that - ever. Everyone there got a good laugh out of it and was able to see first-hand Lily's boldness. As I have told others, it is very difficult for me to describe Lily's personality. It just has to be experienced. And on that night, her independence and confidence came shining through, as usual.
Tom (aka Santa) and Lily
That evening, Carl and Lily sprinkled pieces of bread in the yard for the reindeer. Then we all read "On the Night Before Christmas" together as a family - a tradition that I hope to continue. Lily had decided that she would like to leave chocolate and bread for Santa. So, we arranged the food on a decorative plate and found a good spot for it where Santa was sure to find it. Then, Lily looked up at me and said, "I'll just take one piece of the chocolate and leave the rest for Santa. Okay?" Considering that it was already getting close to 10 pm and there was no way she was getting candy at that hour, I explained that it wouldn't be considerate to take part of Santa's treat. Lily briefly considered this and then said, "Well, I'll just take all the chocolate and then Santa won't know. We'll just leave him bread." Of course, I had to laugh, but it was still a no from me. In a generous act, Santa indeed left some of the chocolate behind for Lily to sample in the morning.
Christmas morning was so much fun. This is only the second time in 13 years that I have not had to travel for Christmas, and we were loving being able to wake up in our own house and experience Christmas together with Lily. When Lily woke up, she knew that presents were waiting for her, but she did not rush downstairs to see them. She was just generally excited and reveling in the glow of Christmas morning. I wanted to go downstairs ahead of her so that I could capture her first reaction to seeing the presents, but she insisted that she be the "line leader" going down the stairs. :) Her reaction was precious too. She had the stop-in-your-tracks, wide-eyed, jaw-drop, gasps of excitement reaction that parents just eat up.
I have to say that Santa did a better job this year than last. As the Deetz side will remember, Santa was very heavy on the books last year (probably comprising 90-95% of the presents). This year, only one book with many more games, clothes, active gear, and dance class stuff (tap shoes, leotard with tutu). Lily had only asked for one present from Santa and that was the "Rainbow Dash" My Little Pony. You can see her reaction to receiving this gift in the video below. Did I mention that I love this age? The biggest hits from Santa (besides the pony which also came with a video that has been watched many times over) were the "rollarcoaster shoes" and the Polar Bear A-B-C game (which I also very much enjoy).
Lily also received a doll from her cousins Lucy and Lainey that she adores. Out of curiosity, I counted how many dolls Lily has. Assuming that I found them all (which I'm sure that I didn't), she has 18. And, she loves every single one of them. If you were to ask her what she wants at the store, 9 times out of 10, she would tell you that she wants another doll. She also enjoys stuffed animals, and I could not even begin to count the number of them in our house right now. She added to that collection a dog she named She-Shawn made at the Make-A-Bear store with Aunt Ingrid. I thought that the name she chose was interesting because the name Shoshana is Hebrew for "lily".
We spent Christmas evening at my parents' house with Angela and Zach, again eating way too much delicious food. The day after Christmas, we celebrated with my mom's side. Once again, my Uncle Sal, Uncle Vito, and my dad came through with an extraordinary Italian meal (always a highly anticipated meal by everyone in the family). As is customary on the Pellerito side, the celebration included a reenactment of the nativity by the children in the family as well as a puppet show for the little ones put together by my Aunt Kathy.
I am really hoping that someone in the family captured Lily's performance in the play. If they did, I'm sending it immediately to America's Funniest Home Videos. Lily was supposed to play the part of the sheep in the nativity story. Each person dressed up as their animal, but something got into Lily before the play and she decided that she was not having any part of it. So in our very touching story, when Lily was cued to enter the stage, she rather loudly announced to the audience that she was not dressed up as a sheep. She was only going to bring out the stuffed sheep. She then placed the stuffed sheep on the floor and kicked it across the stage. I really wish I could show it on video because the attitude is half of the experience.
Christmas fell perfectly this year so that we could all have the weekend to recover and that is what we are doing now. It's a good time for us to reflect on this past year and look ahead to the possibilities for 2009.
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