This year is my little Z’s first Christmas. If last year’s holiday season was celebrated without my Dad, this year’s Christmas was celebrated with the newest addition to the family. 🙂
Since Z’s doctor gave the go-signal that it is OK for Z to travel, my Mom and my sister brought my baby home for the holidays. I stayed in the big metro for another day to do the super rush shopping for gifts. You see, it has been a habit (well, a tradition) for me to give gifts to the kids during the holidays. It doesn’t really feel the same if I don’t have anything to wrap and give to my nephews and nieces and godkids (and if budget permits, to my siblings and cousins). It doesn’t really matter if the items I give out are cheap or expensive.
I have been doing rush shopping before but this year, I didn’t really have any choice but to rush. And I wouldn’t really recommend it. The malls were totally full of people and lines are way too long at the check-out counters. One other thing that I would recommend is to make sure you already have your shopping list handy. I forgot to print mine so I was trying so hard to remember what I had written down to give to the kids. And that made it harder for me to shop. I was totally distracted with the hoards of people trying to spend all those hard earned bonuses.
I was still able to shop for a few items last Saturday but I was able to complete about 75% of my shopping list last Sunday – the day that I was scheduled to go home. 😛
Given that is was just a few days before Christmas, the travel time was relatively fast. I think it was because a lot of people already went home a couple of days before. I got home after about 7 hours of commute and was I so glad to see my little big baby. He was awake, too, when I got home. No surprise there. 😛 And he was so talkative that night that it took him about more than an hour before he was able to go back to sleep. LOL! I can really say that he was so happy to see me. And I was so happy to be home to my baby love, too.
The next day was all about gift wrapping and some last minute shopping. My sister and I went to the grocery to pick up stuff for the Christmas Eve dinner and a few of the gift items that I still needed. Same scenario – too many people in the grocery and in the department store, long taxi lines, hoards of people everywhere, and traffic everywhere. On the other hand, Z was oblivious to what was going on around as he was just at home playing, sleeping, feeding and basically making everyone smile. 😛
I was able to let him wear his santa suit again (first one was when we first set up the Christmas tree in my apartment). However, I think I dressed him too much for church that night because he was sweating during mass. LOL! I had him wore a sleeveless tie-side wrap under his sleeper before getting him in the santa romper. 😛 Good thing that he didn’t complain much during mass, though. Haha! He fell asleep during communion until we got home after mass (the church was just a couple of blocks away from the house).
Z’s timing was great, too. He woke up at midnight to feed so when we had the toast, he was able to participate (lifting his bottle amidst the raised glasses of wine).
Christmas Eve was a bit different this year compared to the previous years. For the first time in several years, we again have a baby in the house. No bonfire, no alcohol, no late night stories until the sun is about to come up. Just a toast, a few gifts opened, lots of food, and a game of heart attack to end the night. LOL!
Z went to sleep after feeding. Haha!
