Derdushka brought Daddy's cousin Andrei to the 'ol Wild & Wonderful to celebrate baby William's first Christmas. And since Andrei had never seen over-the-top American holiday opulence before, we put a ham in the oven and a few extra presents under the tree for everyone to enjoy before the Vodka.
And, although it didn't snow ON Christmas, it snowed both before & after, which was perfectly timed for the snow-obsessed big brother.
At Daddy's company Christmas Party, the boys were given "Reindeer Food;" so we went out late on Christmas Eve, right before bed to sprinkle the glittery food all over the front walk.
In the morning, Alexander was so excited that Santa had tip-toed into his room during the night to deliver "The Count" into his bed, he wasn't at all surprised to see that the banana cake & cookies we'd left out for Santa to snack on were (mostly) missing. Alexander quickly snatched up the remaining cookies to snack on before heading to his "sack."
Since Grandpa & Andrei were still upstairs sleeping, or maybe just because the boy was so excited, each boy opened just one present pre-dawn. Daddy put them both together. And we started playing (& jumping for joy on the trampoline!). And while the boys played, Daddy started cooking potatoes & mixing avocados for breakfast. Yum!
(Sometime late Christmas Eve afternoon the UPS man delivered two awesome packages from Uncle Blake. Despite the boys' three year age difference, they both loved William's ball popper. Loved! It is by far William's favorite Christmas present; thank you Blake, Jennifer and baby Cameron! Love you all!)
When Grandpa came down, he gave Alexander the two "Super-Sonic" cars that he'd brought for the boy. Alexander l.o.v.e.d them! Thank you Grandpa & Babushka!
Unfortunately, shortly after breakfast, Grandpa & Cousin Andrei had to travel back to Brooklyn'd. Hopefully, we'll have another, longer, healthier visit with Andrei over the summer (And Alexander will figure out that Andrei & Aleksey are NOT the same person. The boy kept insisting that "Aleksey just went upstairs & got a haircut.).
Luckily, with a pile of presents still to open, the boys got over their loneliness quickly...
The majority of presents under the tree were from the huge stash that Grandma & Grandpa (under-the-bridge) sent home for the boys a few weeks ago. And everything was a homerun. Alexander took the Mickey Mouse RV trailer set Grandma gave him to bed Christmas night (& took more than a hour to situate Mikey & Pluto under his bedroom stars before settling to sleep... and was up thru the night once to re situate everyone.)
We had a lovely holiday. Just wonderful. Now, if we can manage to put together William's second Christmas sans snots, eye infections, coughs and ear infections, we'll be in great shape. Merry Christmas to all!
