Disclaimer: Sometimes when you Christmas shop you kind of loose track of how many presents you've purchased. Also sometimes you forget to factor in all the other presents from family members that will be added to the pile. So then sometimes when you set up for Christmas and you only have one child it looks like you set up for a Christmas with three children. Oops. No judging - especially because Jack loved it.
Okay now onto the goods.
Want to know one of the best feelings? It's that time right after you climb out of the piles of wrapping paper and boxes and step back and look at Christmas all set up. Garrett and I stood in the corner of our living room for a few minutes and admired our hard work. (Being Santa ain't easy people) Immediately, and without speaking, we both took out our phones and began taking pictures of it. I even used my panoramic camera for the first time (which was a fantastic idea, if I say so myself). But it was so weird, I all of a sudden realized I was being Harlow...
Growing up we always made fun of my Dad for doing exactly this. Except, okay, he was a little worse - he didn't just take pictures of the presents, he videotaped them. This is for serious. It would be so annoying when we were watching home videos, it usually got fast forwarded. We would be sitting together watching a video, probably from around 1992 (because there are literally no home videos of Hannah) and we would be having a great time laughing at how obnoxious we were acting on Christmas Eve and then - mood killer - it then switches to 5 minutes of Harlow slowly panning the camera back and forth without commentary to capture how he Santa set up all the presents. Bor-ing. We never understood what on earth made him want to record how the presents were set up.
So when I realized his love for Christmas present set up was passed down to me I made sure to text him a picture. His response? "Looking at that panoramic picture just makes me happy." I love him. Oh and you can bet your bottom dollar that every year he still spends hours setting up the Christmas pressies - regardless of the fact that there haven't been any Santa believers in his home for probs eight years.
So when I realized his love for Christmas present set up was passed down to me I made sure to text him a picture. His response? "Looking at that panoramic picture just makes me happy." I love him. Oh and you can bet your bottom dollar that every year he still spends hours setting up the Christmas pressies - regardless of the fact that there haven't been any Santa believers in his home for probs eight years.
I would like to point out my absolute favorite part of this picture - the "bow" on the basketball hoop. While I was tying a bow on the kitchen Garrett decided to help me out and tie a bow on the basketball hoop. When I turned around I saw his "bow" and I could not stop laughing. He was obviously going for functionality and you know he was pleased with himself.
I am sad to say that we didn't get any pictures of Jack's very first reaction to Christmas, but as you can imagine it was absolutely ADORABLE. He had his mouth open in awe for about the first three minutes. I actually think it took him a minute to realize that we hadn't been making up the whole "Santa comes while your sleeping and brings presents" thing. Obviously the kitchen was his "big" present and we knew he would love it - we just didn't think he would ignore the other presents for a good 15 minutes.
Other highlights from our morning were;
discovering the basketball hoop,
the helicopter,
the Monster's Inc. umbrella, the bumblebee backpack,
and legos!
Garrett and I were equally excited about our presents, don't you even worry about that. I got a fancy new camera, perfume, sunglasses, the first season of New Girl (which I am obsessed with), season two of Modern Family, and an "I Love Cheese" keychain. Garrett got a new Dallas Mavericks jacket (he's in love with it, maybe even more than he is with me), new basketball shoes, two helicopters, the first season of Duck Dynasty, and several new CDs. We were obviously good this year.
Well probs like everyone else Christmas morning was the most exciting part of our day. After all the presents were opened and had cleaned up all wrapping paper, empty boxes and those stupid twist ties our day pretty much revolved around whatever Jack wanted to play with and whatever basketball game was on. I did make a delicious Christmas dinner and we finished that off with the last of our Christmas cookies. Unfortunately we have to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again, but Jack's birthday is right around the corner people!
