First and foremost, I hope everyone had a great Christmas this year! Ours was… Well, I was frustrated, annoyed, and overwhelmed this year. I already was a scrooge under the circumstances of everything being different. Then, with me going into things with the wrong mindset, I guarantee that didn’t help the fact. I believe I’m going to just highlight the happenings of this years Christmas and Christmas Eve.

Mike’s Family – Yes. I get it. They’re all excited about the new baby! They’re all happy and joyous. They all want to see him, hold him, etc. Before I continue, I love Mike’s family. I love being apart of them. They’re all great people. Like any other family, man they can get under your skin. I nearly had a heart attack when his aunt was holding Mikhail and was trying to set up a plate of food, while he’s partially awake, and holding him by only supporting under his butt. Therefore, he had every opportunity to just completely fling his head back [which he almost always does] and go flying right out of her arms. I cringed at the sight of this. Mike’s mom made an attempt to say, “I will take him while you get your food.” and she was stubborn. “No! I have him. Its fine.” ;;cringe;; I know what you’re thinking; I was told this about three times; “Why the hell didn’t you just grab him then?! He’s your child!” Because, in my eyes, that’s considered rude. I also, wish to please people. [Yea, I know, that's crazy.] Anyways, I also got looked at like I was a monster when asked “You don’t warm up his bottles?!” by his Grandma. Finally, I had to argue with his Mom about his feeding schedule. “He needs to eat. He hasn’t ate in four hours.” — “But he’s sleeping so peacefully.” — “So what? Wake him up, he needs to eat.” — “He’ll eat when he’s hungry.” — “Yea. That will end up being while we’re in the car, on the way home. We aren’t going to be able to just pull over in the car to feed him. Its 9° outside!” ;;annoyed;; It took a while, but I was finally able to calm down about two hours after we got home. I was just overwhelmed with everything.

I’m so used to doing everything my way with the baby. Feedings, changing him, schedules, etc. There is a reason behind why he sleeps for a stretch of four or five hours in a night for me. It’s not just luck. Its setting him up on the right schedule. He was so off that schedule on Christmas Eve. I was awake, every single hour. He took a good 20-40 minutes to eat, leaving me 20 minutes of sleep, an hour, IF I was able to fall asleep right away. Needless to say, Christmas Day I was crabby.

The boys’ presents – Christmas morning, Nickolas woke us up asking to open “all the awesome gifts Santa brought him.” We came out and he opened his presents, and helped with the baby’s. Nickolas got – Hulk Smash Hands, Hulk bubble bath set, “Big Bucket o’ Dinosaurs”, (3) puzzles, (4) refill sets of Nerf Darts for his gun, and these “Special Forces Guys” [they're kinda like G.I. Joe's] Mikhail got – a new bouncer, a floor playmat, and a ‘portable mobile’. [See, we weren't really able to get them A WHOLE lot.] Nickolas was very pleased with what he did get. He said he was disappointed that he didn’t get any cars or trucks. We weren’t able to find him a good truck [we looked for about two hours.] because he wants one that opens up and is big enough for his power rangers to sit in. All in all, I wish I could have gave them more, but am satisfied with the reactions and results.

Mike’s Parents’ House – Very uneventful. Opened presents, ate a huge breakfast, and watched the Disney Christmas Day Parade. Nickolas got TONS of stuff [but of course] from ‘Santa’ over there. The baby, also got loads of stuff. You know those giant, Christmas bags — We have five of them. Mike and I got a bunch of stuff too. Some of the gifts that we received included:
Me- Disney Scrapbook Stickers- Tinkerbell T-Shirt- Pack of Socks [she hates our socks. We ALL got some. Apparently, I'm not a good sock owner.]- Jack Sparrow coffee mug ♥- $5 Starbucks gift card.
Mutual Gifts (Mike and Mine)- Blu Ray Trilogy of Pirates of the Caribbean- Coleman Portable Camping Grill- 5-in-1 Air Mattress
Nickolas and Mikhail got way too much stuff to even bother listing. It included LOADS of clothes. Nickolas also got tons of games like Stitch Operation, Pirates Toss Across, and Candy Land. Like I said, there was a bunch of stuff I can’t even attempt to think of right now.

My parents’ house – Very quick, uneventful visit with my family. It wasn’t the same. No one but my grandparents were there. It just was odd. It was semi-quiet and normal. We sat around and conversated for a little while, opened presents, and then pretty much left. We were only there maybe two hours. Which, I feel bad about, but there was no one there. I found out there was, infact, Christmas Morning breakfast, which I just wasn’t invited too. They’re defense? “We didn’t know it was happening until it happened.” It happens every year! Ugh. Whatever. I miss the old days of Christmas.

That about sums it up. We finally came home and relaxed. We had tons of stuff to do with putting stuff away and such, but didn’t do any of it. Half of the presents are still over by his parent’s house. We didn’t have the room in the car to grab half of them. We threw whatever we did grab by the Christmas tree. I was so completely exhausted by the time we got home. Mikhail’s schedule is ALL messed up. We had a much better night of sleep last night, but I’m still not caught up. I have loads of pictures to show you. [This is where I suddenly become skeptical. Do I post pictures of my family online, openly? I refuse to just add anyone on myspace that I don't know. *sigh*]

Alright… Those photos can be found Christmas 2008 photo section. Also, I have added two other pages of photos also. Those can be found at the main page of my Photo Section. …This entry turned out a lot longer than I was hoping it would. So, I’m going to end it. I hope everyone’s Christmas was enjoyable. 1. Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?2. What was your favorite gift this year?3. New Years Eve is around the corner, what is one resolution you are going to do for 2009?

Written on Friday December 26th, 2008 at 2:34pm || Filed under: Family, Parenting ||