Iiiiittttt’s Christmas!

Well actually it’s Boxing Day, but it’s still the Christmas season.

Christmas is a bit of a strange affair here because being on a farm, the animals still need feeding so first thing it was just N & myself, and then afternoon, the men who are around go out and do the feeding again.  Also, considering we all live within 1 1/2 miles, it’s very rare we have a big family Christmas.  This year was no different…just us and my family.

Being a first christmas for N, I wanted to start some nice traditions like having a stocking, and opening it in our bed.  Luckily OH was back in by the time I got N up, so we could sit on the bed and open his stocking together.

Usually we do 2 trips down the road to both sets of cousins to do present giving & opening, but didn’t have time due to naps and then our guests arriving early.  OH’s brother’s family came over for tea so it didn’t matter as we had a lovely family time then along with handing out gifts, but embarrassingly we’ve not managed to see his sister’s family today as they were off at the local boxing day hunt today so they still haven’t got their presents.  I’m mortified, although the OH doesn’t seem worried!

So we ate lots of nice food – N’s favourite is a roast, so he loved it all.  He also liked christmas cake and christmas pudding. Luckily he’s young enough to still go for naps when needed, so he was on fine form although he did almost fall asleep at the lunch table as the end of it was at about his usual naptime!

He had some lovely presents – we did gradual present opening throughout the day for him, so he had a chance to play with the presents as they were opened.  Obviously he enjoyed the paper and the boxes the presents came in (the one below was perfect for riding in)

He had lots of noisy, pull along toys which are what I’d been hoping for, some bath toys, books, a shape sorter car, wooden Noah’s Ark (grabbed off a friend before she put it for sale in the nearly new sale!), a lovely Snowman hand puppet, obligatory cash for his savings, and from Grandma a gorgeous personalised coat hook for his room and hand-knitted jumper.

We saved his presents from us until today, as he won’t know any difference anyway.  The main one was a bargain present I got hold of.  A Moover red dumper truck – ride on and push along.  No screws, as it was all just clip it together.  Really simple to assemble and looks great.  He loved it, although riding on it he has a tendency to slip off one side.  But he spent the rest of the time pushing it around the living room.

Luckily he seems to have liked all his gifts he got.  Everything’s been played with, so I just need to move the random single bed that’s in his room, get a big toy box and split his toys and books into the 3 rooms (living room, dining room & bedroom) so he’s got something in each to play with for variety.  It’s helpful as i find if he gets bored with what’s in one room, we can just go into another room and he can choose something different to play with in there.

He’s coped brilliantly with the change to routine the last few days.  Christmas eve we all go out as a family for a pub meal, so (even though he wouldn’t nap beforehand or in the car on the way) he didn’t get to bed til past 8pm.  Was up at normal time, managed to get in a couple of naps on Christmas day, late tea so was 30 minutes later going to bed than normal.  And today he didn’t sleep much in the afternoon, but was absolutely exhausted by 6pm.

So back to normal routine today, and hopefully he’ll get back to shorter morning nap (or none) and longer afternoon nap ready for his nursery start in a couple of weeks.

How was your Christmas?