The Christmas Season, Part 3...Christmas Day

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year. Sam understood Santa a little and we'd been talking for a month or so about Jesus's birthday (Sam loves birthdays because he loves birthday cake!). But as much as we talked about it, I don't think anything could have prepared him for waking up Christmas morning to a living room full of gifts and 9 sets of eyes staring at him...Gran, Gramps, Pop, Aunt Kris, Aunt Katy, Aunt Liz, Jessica, John and me. John's family has a tradition of a big breakfast on Christmas morning. This year we decided to have breakfast for everyone at our house so Sam could open his gifts. I didn't do it up as well as John's mom...beautiful Christmas china and crystal at a perfectly set table...but, we did eat well. I think Sam was a little stunned and overwhelmed by everyone being there when he woke Christmas morning because he walked right by the Christmas tree and didn't notice any of the toys under it.
The highlight of gift opening for me was when Sam was opening gifts from Gran & Gramps (John's parents). After he opened one, I told him, "That's from Gran and Gramps". He stopped what he was doing and walked over to the couch, where they were sitting, and said, "Thanks Gran and Gramps!" and gave them a hug!...way to make a momma proud!
The gift opening process was quite arduous as Sam would open one thing and then just want to play with it. He hasn't quite grasped the concept of 'speed opening'. My sisters and I ended up opening things for him and just showing him his toys. Now, we have more toys than we have room for and next year, I've told everyone we need to have a '1 gift' rule. I haven't yet figured out what he likes best...his garbage truck, horse trailer, animal books, scooter, or MP3 player. I think the MP3 was the neatest gift. It looks like a little kid music player, but actually holds MP3s. So John and I have loaded music from his music class on it and he's learning how to operate it...play, stop, skip songs.
We also had a WONDERFUL Christmas Dinner, later in the day, which was more like Thanksgiving Dinner since we missed that this year. It was all so yummy and we had so much leftover that I've gotten to enjoy it over and over the last week...and no, I'm still not tired of it. And we finished the evening singing Happy Birthday to Jesus...and Sam blew out a candle for Jesus's birthday, and of course had some cake...pumpkin cheescake!