Christmas with a One Year Old

This Christmas season is already completely different than last year's Christmas. For one, we've got 10 tiny fingers that love touching and removing tree ornaments.

Ohhh, so shiny! I can just hear her saying, but really it's more like yabbbyabbbyabbybeeeboobeeboo. We've asked our Nepali friends if they understand her, hoping she's actually speaking Nepalese. They don't, so we're thinking she must be speaking Burmese, naturally.

The other night I had every good intention of reenacting our Christmas card photo session from last year. I should've known that a 2.5 month old is going to sit still much better than a 14.5 month old. I thought things were going well in the beginning. Anna was all smiles around the Christmas tree. Until the camera came out. The smiles went away, the ornaments started coming off one by one, her movements were too quick for the camera to focus, and, oh, she was more interested in trying to put the stockings on her feet like they were socks. Again, naturally.

So there were a few pictures that were just precious but not necessarily Christmas card worthy:

 



















I think it'll still be another year before Anna really starts to understand even a little of this whole Christmas thing. I set up an Advent calendar with readings and fun activities for us to do everyday. You know, the usual: singing Christmas carols, driving around to see the lights, watch Christmas movies, bake cookies, visit Santa. Anna couldn't care less. And actually we're skipping Santa this year. Again, Anna couldn't care less, she'd most likely just be terrified of the jolly man. She really isn't into presents either. She'd rather play with the wrapping and tissue paper (except when our good friend Abby brought over Anna's Christmas gift the other day. After playing with the tissue paper Anna saw the gift, and I've never seen her so excited for the actual gift! It was perfect for this little doll loving girl: a baby doll stroller and a baby doll. It hasn't left her side since Sunday, it's even gone on a car ride with us, stroller and all). She's not exactly into helping bake cookies or behaving well because of an elf on a shelf. She hasn't written out a wish list or sat even for two minutes during a Christmas movie. And I'm okay with all of this. It just gives me another year to prepare myself for when Christmas becomes Anna's favorite time of year. Of course, naturally.

Ok, Grumpy Greta Goose, we're done.