Christmas Round-Up

Hi all, let me begin by wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2013!! It's hard to believe that Christmas is already over! I hope you had a good one!

We had the joy of celebrating Xander's first Christmas and we celebrated it in style, literally starting on the 1st December and doing something Christmassy everyday leading up to the BIG day! A lot of our family brought Xander Christmassy themed clothes and I just couldn't resist buying more so I actually managed to dress Xander in a Christmas related item of clothing leading up to and including Boxing Day!!

I felt intense pressure to get everything just perfect and that included the Christmas tree. After convincing myself that our old tree wasn't good enough I dragged hubby to the shops to buy a brand new tree and decs. Now, I'm a complete perfectionist when it comes to Christmas tree dressing and went for a blue, white, silver and purple theme. What surprised me this year was how much I was willing to go out of my comfort zone and add non-coordinating baubles and decorations to the tree that people brought us to celebrate Xander's first Christmas!!

The baby group we regularly attend had Christmas themed crafts running at each session and we had a lot of fun creating tree decorations, Christmas cards and calendars:

A major enjoyable part of the build up to Christmas was taking Xander to visit Santa for the first time. Santa played a massive part in my Christmases as a child. Every year Santa visits my Ann's home to hand deliver the gifts. This is a tradition that still continues to his day, so I was keen to introduce Xander to Santa early on and avoid the typical crying at Santa routine!! I was utterly delighted that Xander wasn't at all phased by Santa and we actually visited Sandra's grotto twice (as well as a Santa visit and Xander's baby group!) So by Christmas Xander and Santa were firm friends!!

We brought Xander an advent calendar and arranged for a letter to be sent from Memories Made!! I also had a keepsake box made especially for Xander's first Christmas! I've kept everything from gift tags and cards to the joke, hat and toy from his first cracker!!

Christmas itself went by with such a blur! Hubby worked right up until Christmas and only had Christmas Day and Boxing Day off. Christmas Eve me and Xander had a PJ day. We watched lots of Christmas movies and I finished wrapping the last few gifts. This is a tradition I'd like to maintain for years to come!

Xander slept all through the night on Christmas Eve!! So we woke up lovely and refreshed! We actually had to wake Xander up to get Christmas proceedings underway! First task of the day was to Skype the in laws! They've only recently got online so Skype was a new experience but it was lovely to open presents together and for Xander to see his great nana and grandad on Christmas Day! He seemed to enjoy the experience, moving up really close to the webcam to say hello!

Obviously being Xander's first Christmas all our family wanted to share his special day. So there was a lot of rushing about on our part to ensure this happened. First up over to my mums, where we shared a lovely morning together and had lunch with them. Then in the afternoon over to hubby's family for more gifts and food! To be honest as lovely as it was in hindsight I think it was all a bit too much for Xander, a bit too overwhelming.

So the next day we spent the majority of the day at home. Just me, hubby and Xander. We opened the rest of his presents with him. We played with his toys and we all sat on the sofa and watched Happy Feet. It was just what we needed!!! Boxing Day evening we popped over to my Nan's for tea and of course to see Santa! His new friend! Here's a pic of my perfect little family all dressed up this Christmas!!