New Christmas Is The Way To Go!

We celebrated Christmas on December 11 this year. It was awesome. There were so many great things about it, I have to make a list:
- We spent the whole day with just the 3 of us, and had no guilt about not seeing other people, because, hey! it's not really  Christmas, it's New Christmas!
- There was no expectation involved in the day at all. Christmas can be a bit stressful, with all the people to see and it can be a bit overwhelming. You want everything to be perfect. On New Christmas Day, there's none of that! If it all goes horribly wrong, no worries! You get a do-over on December 25!
- When Elizabeth was played out by 12:30, we just put her in her bed. And then we put ourselves in bed! For 3 hours! New Christmas is great! There was no apologizing for her, or helping her stay calm, or making her eat the food that other people had made. Nope - she had cereal, one pancake, and yogurt for most of the day. And cous cous for dinner.
- We had a lamb roast instead of turkey. Seriously, best choice ever. So much easier, and again, no expectations. If you have an undercooked turkey on Christmas day, it can be a bit of a game-changer, but that's not a problem on New Christmas day - you just get a nice rare piece of lamb!

And Elizabeth finally 'gets' what presents are now. We had to divide her gifts up since after the first two, she just needed to play with them - a play-kitchen, and a baby doll with a bassinet. There was no option of getting her to care at all about the other presents. So we gave her a couple more after lunch - a paint set with paintbrushes which are seriously fun, and seriously messy. And then after dinner, a Thomas the Tank Engine train set. By that time, she totally knew what a 'present' was, and she was pretty good at ripping the paper off. Atta girl!

This was our living room when we went to bed on New Christmas Eve:

Elizabeth woke up at 7:27 am. This was the scene at about 7:31 am:

And at about 7:33 am:

And at about 7:34 am:

She showed her new baby all her toys, and the "Teeeee!!! Baby, lightsssss!!" Completely adorable. 

The other big hits were the Nemo and Dory stuffies, and the Mary Poppins dolly. She now will bring Mary Poppins to me or Matthew, and say, "Poppie!! MummyDaddy Poppie!!" (When she gets excited, she just says both our names as one...) And we, being the fools that we are, start singing some random Mary Poppins song and making Mary dance. Elizabeth loves it. She also loves the cake set that Alex & Naomi gave her - it's a great toy with velcro in between the pieces so she can carry it from room to room without losing any slices of cake. Obviously, she thinks she is incredible when she does this.

As per Elizabeth-style, she was a bit tired and sorta sick for New Christmas day (just like her birthday, and New Christmas Eve). We didn't mind at all, and just had lots of chances for Christmas cuddles. It was kinda nice, not gonna lie. 

Merry New Christmas, from the Hawkeyes!