Connecticut Christmas

The snow arrived one day late, but we still had a memorable Christmas celebration in Connecticut. We visited real live reindeer, met horses, made a gingerbread house, took in a spectacular holiday light show courtesy of Paul Tudor Jones, visited Great-Grammy Krause, and had general fun times with Cousin Sophie and Aunt Jen, Uncle Derek, Aunt Melissa, Uncle Greg, Grammy and Grandaddy and more dogs than we could count.

Christmas morning was a real treat; Patrick loved his new Spiderman bike, Woody and Buzz, and many dinosaur toys. Sophie loves her new easel and butterfly wings, and Madeline loved the excitement in general, and also her new cradle and laying her baby down for "night night."

Donald and I got our present Christmas Eve, when Patrick whispered to Donald "I want to be with you forever," and asked me "Can you be my wife?" This was somewhat tempered on Christmas Day, when we heard him inviting his new Buzz Lightyear to come live with him forever as they both settled down for nap.

Haul Out the Holly

"Is it Christmas yet?" Patrick asked us all month. "How many more minutes?" We marked the time with sweet holiday activities like searching for our elf on the shelf Leon, decorating the tree, attending the Christmas Parade in Old Town, and doing holiday crafts. Our tiny dancer Madeline enjoyed swaying and bopping to the sounds of the season and was thrilled when Donald arrived home with a twinkly lighted snowman for the front porch. We turned him to face in so she can stand on the couch and wave out the window at him.
We capped it all off with Patrick's epic performance in the Abracadabra holiday pageant. This year Patrick's class was assigned to be trees and donkeys. Patrick however decided he was a horse, and the unflappable Ms. Nathalie said "just go with it." So five donkeys a very cranky horse, and it turned out, Donald, sat in the front of the church and hee-hawed on cue. We went immediately from church to the CVS minute clinic and diagnosed our horsey's crankiness: double ear infection. Antibiotics in hand, we turned our attention once again to final preparations and counting the minutes until Santa's highly anticipated arrival.

A Visit To St. Nick

Santa Claus listened intently as Patrick explained the precise dimensions of the "big huge" Transformer he wants for Christmas last week at the Christmas tea party. Madeline was fascinated, but was completely happy to observe Santa from the safety of my lap.