Family Christmas

Well, yesterday was our extended family Christmas celebration up in Richmond. I must say it was quite nice. I'm always weary of these get-togethers. You never know when somebody's crazy is going to show. We have a lot of crazy in my family, so things can get ugly. It's not that yell and scream ugly either. It's that grumbling, tense undercurrant that just makes everything suck. Fortunately, there was none of that nonsense last night, at least not that I witnessed. It was actually great.

Connor was soooooo good in the car. He played for the first hour and slept the second. We got there on time and before the crowd hit. At the peak of pre-dinner activity everything seemed to be going well. The kids were playing nicely and no one was being left out. Sarah and Neil had their significant others with them (that always makes these things more tolerable if you really don't like them). Mom wasn't talking about work! Michael and Dad were having fun chasing Connor around.

After dinner, I got to sit down with my (great) aunt Kitty and (great) uncle Larry and look at old photos. I have been scanning them in and trying to make an archive of who, when, and where. We were hardly into them and I already had a ton of info. Of course, we didn't get very far into the large number of photos, but that's just something to look forward to next time.

Then of course came the presents. The noise of all the yelling kids (there's 13 of us grandkids and there were some other cousins) was freaking Connor out, so he and Michael went into the next room until things died down. Then we sat and opened his presents. Connor hasn't really figured out the gift thing yet, so the paper was his main entertainment. He would pull off a piece and try to eat it. I would take it away and start tearing another piece for him. He would pull it off and try to eat it... you see how this is going. It was fun. The first one we opened were some blocks with actions (buttons, flaps...). He really liked them. We ended up taking them out of the box so he could play with them. He also got a pewter cup with his name on it and a "First Christmas" ornament.

After the gifts, people started leaving. Soon it was relatively quiet again. We let Connor crawl around a lot to get out his last bits of energy. Of course, Michael had to play with Jim and Carolyn's dogs (poor baby is so deprived to only have cats). Connor liked the dogs. Then we bundled up and started the trek home. Connor slept the whole way. He's so good.

So the holiday celebration was a success. The only thing that wasn't great is I didn't do some stuff I needed to... but you'll hear about that at a later time!