Christmas Eve was spent with my side of the family, as always. We started out the evening with our annual Christmas party at Grams and Gramps house with the entire Kay fam (or at least those who show up). We had a great dinner of turkey, ham, yummy potatoes, veggies and lots of desserts! After eating and visiting for a while our favorite guest, Santa Claus, showed up!
The kids were so excited and the party went wild! (as if it wasn't wild enough!) The kids gathered around Santa and he had a good long talk with them about what needed to be done that night: be good, set out my cookies and milk, and go to bed early. After his annual lecture it was time to get down to business. One at a time the kiddos were called up to sit on Santa's lap and have a visit with him. As soon as they were done, and the photo ops were over, Santa would give them their gift and move onto the next kid. The rule has always been that you can't open your gift until Santa says so, usually after all the kids have their gift and they've sung a carol or two and Santa leaves.
I'm not sure how far down the line Tyke was, there were a lot of kids, but everyone got so excited when it was his turn to sit on the big guys lap! Chad snapped pictures, my cousin Dayna recorded, while I took Tyke up for his special visit. Chad and I were really curious if Tyke would be a good boy or not. His first visit with Santa at the first of the month went really well. As the weeks have passed by Tyke has gotten more and more shy around people and will get upset. I placed him on Santa's lap and he looked at me confused. He looked at Santa, closed his eyes tight and turned toward the crowd, opened them up again hoping that this was all a dream I'm sure, turned back to see that Santa was still there and he squirmed and tried to push away. It was great! He never actually cried but he was definitely uncomfortable with the whole thing. He whined a little and squirmed a lot, but the whole squinting his eyes was hilarious and had everyone laughing! (Squinting is something that his Great Uncle Drew taught him!)
Tyke took his gift and I took him and we went and sat down. Of course our little guy tried his hardest to open his gift and we tried our hardest to stop him. We agreed at 50/50, it was half opened when he finally stopped. The rest of the kids did great visiting with Santa. Afterwards they all sang a song and then Santa went on his way. At the count of three the kids were allowed to open their gifts. It was total craziness! Tyke got the cutest little teddy bear that recites "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and he absolutely loved it! He would give it hugs and then shake his shoulders, as if dancing, while it talked. (As it talks it's head moves back and forth, giving Tyke the impression that it's dancing) We visited for a while longer and then decided to be on our way.
After leaving the hill we headed back to town and stopped for about an hour to visit Grandma Jean. It was awkwardly quiet at her house. Usually she has quite the crowd too but with all of the sickness going around, the family had opted to stay away to spare her. We had a good visit. Tyke could not and would not sit still. He was climbing through the piano legs, flipping the lever on the recliner, and playing with the decorations on the tree. He also did his usual share of teasing Grandma Jean. Tyke loves teasing her and Grandma Jean loves teasing him back! We finally decided to call it a night and we headed home.
I'm so thankful that Tyke gets to know his great grandparents!!!
Once home we were able to quickly get Tyke ready for, and into, bed. He was one exhausted little boy after the long, fun filled, exciting day he had just had! Chad and I took care of his job of putting out the cookies and milk since he had fallen asleep sooner than expected. For the record, Tyke, Chad and I had baked sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles the night before, they were so good that Santa was lucky he even got any! We got things situated and then we headed off for bed ourselves.
Christmas morning was so great! I woke up way too early (I always have and I probably always will! I love Christmas!) and bugged Chad until he woke up too. I hurried out to get a bottle made for Tyke before waking him up and exclaiming that it was FINALLY Christmas!!! We fed him, changed him, had a scare that maybe he had caught the flu (he started dry heaving but never threw up, weird) and then headed out to see what we could find around 7 a.m.
Santa definitely made it to our house! There were presents galore and the milk and cookies were gone. I beat Chad and Tyke into the family room so that I could record Tyke's reaction. It was so cute and everything we had hoped for! The pitter patter of Tyke's little hands as he came crawling down the hallway is something I will always remember! As soon as he rounded the corner he stopped and his mouth fell open, he gasped "wow!" He totally made our Christmas with his excitement! He crawled so fast over to all of the gifts. He found two containers of treats and he was done for the day with just that. We showed him his new truck and he thought that was pretty cool too. It wasn't until Chad put Tyke into his new truck that he realized just how awesome it was! He loved pulling the steering wheel back and forth and honking the horn. It was great fun for all of us! He slowly but surely opened his gifts. Our little guy got spoiled! After a while he lost interest, leaving three gifts still wrapped for later. Chad and I opened our gifts in between all of the fun. We got spoiled too!
Around 10:00 a.m. we started working on getting ready for the day. We had plans for a brunch at Nana's house at 11:00 am. We got our gifts for our families loaded and we were on our way. We had a yummy brunch of pancakes, crocpot breakfast casserole (eggs, ham, hash browns and cheese), bagels and juice. We visited, cleaned up and got busy exchanging gifts. Once again Tyke, Chad and I got spoiled rotten. Tyke got new clothes from Nana, a tractor from his cousin, and Chad and I got new camp gear...an outdoor kitchen! Along with slippers, a hoodie and gift cards to our favorite restaurants. We visited some more and finally around 3 p.m. we headed up the hill to Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Terry's house for Christmas party number 3!
We had all debated on partying at Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Terry's house because the flu bug had already knocked down the Robertson clan. We decided that we had all been exposed anyway so we went ahead and partied. We had leftovers from the night before for our dinner. The cousins opened their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa and exchanged their cousin gifts. Tyke got a fun little spinning top that sings songs and talks about sea animals from Mac. He got clothes and a humongous Tonka dump truck with a hard hat and sand toys from Grandma and Grandpa. Once we took out the sand tools that's all he would play with, he could care less about anything else. For the adults, we usually draw names, but this year decided to switch things up a little bit. Us girls each brought three $5 gifts and the guys brought one $20 gift. We piled everything into the center of the room and played it almost like a white elephant gift exchange. There wasn't much stealing going on but there was a whole lot of threatening happening. Heather Jo had chosen a box with two bags of Reese's peanut butter Christmas trees, my favorite! When I attempted to steal it I got threatened so I backed down and chose an envelope with a Costa Vida gift card in it, score! I hid that sucker so no one could steal it from me. We had so much fun visiting and watching the kids play together. Our Kay family has grown so much that it's unbelievable! There are now 27 of us!
Merry Christmas 2013!!! And Merry 1st Christmas Tyke!!!
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