Waiting for Santa

This year we packed up M and trekked over to Rutledge for the Baker Family Christmas at Uncle Johnny's house. M met his Baker cousins for the first time, and Lauren helped him open presents. It was fun to talk to Chad and Kathy and all the rest, and Mamaw Baker looked great and was in high spirits. The only bad spot was that no one had mentioned to us that everyone was exchanging presents, so M had a pile of presents, and we had brought nothing except a gift for Mamaw. We were mortified, but what do you do? Sigh.

M resented the long drive home from Rutledge and let us know by crying for the entire 1 hour-long drive, so Chris and I were both frazzled by the time we pulled into church for the Christmas Eve candelight service. M lasted through about 15 minutes of the service, and then Chris had to take him out, but the service was lovely.

After that, we headed over to Donna's for Christmas Eve dinner, and M's spirits improve exponentially because Donna's house means unlimited food and a plethora of attention. He has had Donna riiiiight where he wanted her from the beginning, and he knows it now. Dinner was--as always--excellent, and we stayed just past M's bedtime (we've been trying to push back his bedtime, and this was night 2 of the experiment...so far a wild success!) before heading home to read his Christmas bedtime story and tuck him in for the night. Mason got a prelude to Christmas morning at Donna's and opened a little dog that bounces and barks (soooooo annoying, but he likes it) and some UT pajamas that M just might fit into by kindergarden.

Once home, Chris and I (ahem) paved the way for Santa's arrival quite cheerily until we realized that the video camera was nowhere to be found. After 45 minutes of frantic searching, I called Donna in hysterics. As usual, she bailed me out of my crisis, and at 10:45 on Christmas Eve I was driving back to Donna's in my jammy-jams to borrow her camera. After an extended wait in the Walgreens line to buy tapes for the camera, I made it back home and into bed just before midnight. Drama, drama. Luckily, Christmas morning proved less traumatic.

Oh, and NO, Chris did not let Mason wear the elf outfit all day. We compromised, and he wore a Christmas sweater vest all day until we got to Donna's, and THEN he changed into his festive-wear. And it was precious, as you can see.

Sidenote: Lesley Burdine called Monday to let me know that she had my camera bag (with video camera) at her house, where it had been left during Miriam's shower. As I had never taken the camera out of the car, I would NEVER have entertained the notion that it culd be anywhere but at Mom's house, but Mom or Tyra must have noticed it in the car when they arrived at the shower and "helped me out" by bringing it in. Oh, well. It's found, and all the discs of M's first birthday, learning to walk, etc. are safe and sound at Miriam's house now, where they will wait until we return to Clarksville to see the new Shasserre babies.