“Early Christmas”

We totally don’t deserve it- we moved 900 miles away, we got jobs that don’t allow us time off at the holidays, and then to top it all off we went and had a baby far, far away from extended family.
But what do Layla’s Nanny and Papa do? Do they let these facts keep them from sharing the holiday with us? No way. They fly out in mid-December to have ‘Early Christmas’ with their granddaughter. It was a wonderful few days and as always- way too short. It’s always tempting to move back to Illinois after watching Layla with any of her grandparents. But then we remind ourselves where we live now and how much we love it and we make the most of our time with our family when we have it- and to never under estimate the power of Skype.

This year we waited to get our tree until the grandparents arrived so they could help decorate and witness the ornament apocalypse of 2012- between a two year old and a dog named Lucy, we lost a few this year.

I wanted to go somewhere a little more special than our usual tree supplier, Home Depot. After a little research and deciding this wasn’t the year to go and cut down our own tree, we decided to visit Bath Nursery. We got a little nervous when we pulled up, there only seemed to be a few trees to choose from, but soon realized the tree selection was just spread out around the perimeter of the building.
But the pretty Oregonian firs were not the main attraction for this visit. It was the pair of Reindeer that come to stay at Bath nursery for the duration of the holiday season. Layla was mildly interested in the huge animals but the adults were impressed. I couldn’t remember ever seeing real reindeer- they are huge!  We got the tree up and trimmed and then it was time to go out and buy some presents to put under our pretty tree.

I had forgotten that Christmas shopping can be fun. It’s usually an activity I try to complete on lunch breaks or on a day off in-between grocery shopping and laundry, trying to finish up early and always failing miserably. But with grandparents to help get the little one in and out of the car, adults to talk to over lunch- It can actually be an enjoyable experience. They even watched Layla one night so Court and I could go shopping for her- something we didn’t have to worry about so much last year but was imperative this year. The visit also coincided with the toddler Christmas Sing at daycare and Layla had the biggest cheering section.
And of course Early Christmas wouldn't be Early Christmas without a delicious meal- this year we had prime rib- but the holiday culminated with the opening of presents- which Layla calls ‘Merry Christmas’- which is cute until she is screaming between sobs, “I want to Merry Christmas!!” She didn’t quite understand that this was early Christmas and there was still a whole other Christmas which is when we would open the rest of the presents… which soon resulted in the rest of the presents being hidden in a closet until further notice.
So thank you Nanny and Papa for forgiving us for moving so far away and continuing on with this tradition and giving us some family holiday time out here in Colorado.