Christmas 2008

Christmas this year was beautiful.  We really had a good time.  For the first time in several year, we didn't host it at our house, so things were more relaxed (for us) than normal.

The classic shot by the tree on Christmas morning (Yes, Jessica, there is a Christmas tree!)

We tried to be very deliberate with Zoe this year to not make Christmas all about the presents.  Leading up to Christmas, whenever we got a chance to talk to her about it, we were very careful to say that it was all about Jesus' birthday and that she was going to get to see Pop Pop and Uncle Joe and Ashley and the rest of the family.

 Zoe- enjoying her visit

When she saw the gifts in the morning that we were going to take down to Lewes, she went through each one.  "This is for Mama, and this is for Jonas, and this is for Pop Pop, and this one is for Zoe!"  Once we got to my brothers house, instead of watching her open all of her presents, we had her hand things out to everyone as they opened their gifts one at a time.

Zoe still had another surprise for me though.  One of the first gifts she opened was a little Thomas the Tank Engine toy. Instead of rushing to get through the rest of her presents, she was just as happy as could be with that Thomas.  All she wanted to do from that moment on was play with that Thomas.  At one point I literally had to hide Thomas so I could trick her into opening more presents but then I thought to myself, why am I trying to force gifts on her when clearly she's 100% content with what she has? When it was all said and done, she probably only opened half of them, but she didn't care.  She had her Thomas!

 

Uncle Joe and Ashley got Jonas his very first Star Wars shirt!

 

The hat I knitted for Jonas

Pop Pop and Jonas (between naps)

Hope everyone else had a great holiday as well!