Christmas Day 2011

Even though he had gone to bed much later than usual the night before, Riley still woke up at normal time on Christmas morning, around 7am. The three of us took our customary picture at the top of the stairs (sadly, without Erin and Jeff this year), and then I carried Riley down to see what Santa had brought him.

When I pointed out all of his new toys next to the tree, his face just lit up with excitement and joy. (Big thanks to Nopsi for capturing this moment!) He scrambled out of my arms and ran over to see what Santa had left for him.

We let him check out his three big presents for a bit and then moved on to his stocking. There was a lot of stuff in it, and he kept reaching in and pulling something else out, even burying his face in the opening a couple of times. Crazy kid. I finally just upended the stocking and dumped everything out onto the floor in front of him, creating quite a large pile!

A quick time out for some milk…..

…..and then we moved on to opening his presents from Nola and Nopsi. He sure cleaned up this year, and we hadn’t even gotten him out of his PJs at this point!

We did eventually have to tear him away from his loot, though, to get dressed for the day. Aunt E and Uncle Jeff arrived shortly after 9 to open gifts with us before the rest of the family got to the house at 10.

   

Bop made our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon…..

…..and then it was time for another round of gift-giving.

A little down time (and a short nap for Riley), and then the three of us headed over to Kenny’s family’s celebration. We had a delicious Christmas dinner, prepared mostly by Grandma and Grandpa, and topped off with a little after-dinner aperitif of limoncello, direct from Italy!

The birthday buddies, Riley and Zac, played so well together all afternoon. Zac was very generous in sharing his toys with Riley, even some of the new ones he had just gotten. One final round of present-opening took place, and the day was suddenly drawing to a close.

We arrived back at the house around 7pm, tired from a long day. Riley had another super quick (and somewhat teary) bath, and then he totally crashed. The poor kid had been off his schedule and dragged from one place to another for three days straight, and he really didn’t know what the heck had been going on. He hung in there, though, and Santa certainly was very good to him.

We hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did this year. Happy Holidays to you all!