Posts Tagged ‘gifts’
Belated Xmas Wrap Up!
It’s taken me a little longer than last year to write a Christmas round up, well, mainly because the post Christmas-I’m-fed-up-with-anything-Christmas feeling I get lasted a little longer than usual. Don’t get me wrong, we had a wonderful and happy Christmas with family and friends. Things couldn’t really have gone better, but I think the Xmas burn out is due to the fact that this year was Sam’s first real Christmas. Last year, he was like a bump on a log, sitting and watching all the merriment and traditions happen around him. He barely touched some wrapping paper. This year was a completely different story. He’s almost two, and the hyper-active, ever inquisitive little guy was fully in the Christmas spirit: which burned us out!
Mega Sized Christmas Pic Post: Part 2
Sam and Mom, cheek to cheek
On with the rest of the Christmas pictures! Melissa, Sam and I are lucky to have two great families to spend every Christmas with. On the evening of the 24th, we had great fun with Melissa’s family for a traditional “réveillon” as you saw in my last post. Sam had a great time and ended up fast asleep in his “mamienounes” bedroom, no doubt dreaming of what Santa would bring him in the morning… or maybe he was dreaming of whatever babies dream of… a bottle? Milk? Nipples? Toys? The birth canal? Who knows!
After we got home from Melissa’s parents at around 1 in the morning, Melissa and I put Sam to bed and we had our own little gift exchange… hehehe 
But seriously, we actually traded gifts so get yer mind out of the gutter (but just for a little while)! We then hit the sack ourselves around 2:30 am only to be up again at 7 am 
to pack the car and head over to my parents house, which is about an hour’s drive away. I think we were the only car on the road. It was dead. We got there in just under 40 minutes. Sweet.
We had a great day full of good family fun, including our annual Toronto Vs. Montreal street hockey game, which Montreal won again, for the tenth year in a row… go HABS! 
Mom and Dad had all kinds of food out all day long, so we naturally stuffed our faces silly. I took it upon
myself to cook everyone our traditional “Big Christmas Breakfast”, which I did not mess up too badly, dishing out bacon, sausage, eggs, ham, etc. In the early afternoon, we had our secret Santa gift exchange that brought us some good laughs and plenty of picture opportunities. Then came supper with a gorgeous and scrumptious turkey with all the fixings. Mom and Dad have really mastered the Christmas dinner, it was beyond excellent and they are to be commended in the efforts! 
Sam, however, did not taste the turkey as he was busy puking up his own meal… Poor little guy, we’re guessing there was a little too much excitment for him, so he projectile vomited all over his high chair! He was fine after, even managing to score some nice fruit puray for dessert.
Following dinner, we had our “5 dollar just for laughs” mini gift exchange, which is always full of suspense and “gotcha” type moments. The only rule that applies is that the gift you buy has to be of a 5$ value. So it can be anything… and that may not be a good thing if your left standing with a crappy gift! This year, I actually stole my Godson’s gift: a giant universal remote control. I’m a geek. It was cool. It was mine. Then we had some dessert (Mom baked four types of pies!!!! Pumpkin, coconut, chocolate and lemon! They were filthy good folks… F-I-L-T-H-Y G-O-O-D! 
Mom giving it a shot
My bro hitting the tough part
We then polished the evening off with a fun little tradition we started last year, which consists of wrapping a gift 50 times with all sorts of boxes and paper. The letting people have a chance at trying to unwrap it with oven mitts! This game rocks people! The rules are that you must put the gift in the middle of the floor and all the players must sit around it. One person takes a pair of dice and throws them. If they roll a pair, they can put the mitts on and start to unwrap the gift. If no pair is rolled, the dice are given to the next player and the gift remains unharmed. The next player then rolls for a pair as well… and so on and so forth. Whom ever successfully and completely unwraps the gift gets to keep it. It’s nothing but fun and hectic times ahead if you try this game, as the pace quickens as the gift is unwrapped.
As you can see, it was a busy Christmas on my end, and I am thankful for every moment. Sam had a blast playing with his aunt and uncles, grand-parents… and, of course, his cousins! Here are some pics from the day, as I am out of words… and tired of writing!
Our family on our first Christmas together
 The family tree with the gifts being guarded by my nephews |
 My bro and his daughter, a proud irish girl |
 My nephew with Sam |
 My godson after he won the oven mitt gift game! |
 My sis and niece take a quick picture break from the frantic oven mitt game |
 My bro-in-law sweating with the effort... he really gave it his all! |
 Next it was my brothers turn, he hit the duct tape! |
 My sis taking care of Sam as she always does when she's in town! |
 The frantic family dinner table |
 Sam and his uncle sharing a ribbon |
 Me in my new Irish colors... |
 ... and my niece in hers!!! |
 Grand-parents with the grand-kids! |
 Three generations... I've waited a long time to take this picture! |
 Sammy rockin' it with his cousins... he later beat them up! |
 The grand-parents fightin' over Sam... like usual! |
 Sam makin' a move for a tree ornament! |
 Nanny with Colby, my sis's dog. |
 Me acting stupid... what else is new |
As always, thanks for reading!
Mega Sized Christmas Pic Post: Part 1
Well folks, as I write this, my holiday vacation has little less than twenty four hours of life to it, but don’t get me wrong because I’m not complaining. It’s been a very busy, wacky and wild two weeks, and maybe a little relaxed, slacker time at work is just what I need! My bosses read my blog on occasion, so I really hope they picked up the sarcasm there! If not, I may be staring an unemployment related blog soon, stay tuned 
Our Christmas festivities started off in the evening of the 24th, over at Melissa’s parents house. 
The whole gang was there dressed to the nines and Sam was at his attention grabbing best. Being passed around from adult to adult without the slightest frown or sob, Sam soldiered on until Mom plopped him down in his retro 80′s feeding chair that his “MamieNoune”, Melissa’s mother, had bought for him. The buffet was laid out and Sam was eating like the rest of us. He seems to enjoy that, I think it makes him feel like one of the big people. That when Sammy boy decided to shake things up a bit, and when Mom wasn’t looking, that’s when he struck! Mom’s head was turned and out flew his hand. The slap completely knocking over his bowl of chicken pot pie and pea puray… all over his bib, the retro 80′s chair, the floor… and Melissa’s black dress pants! Merry Christmas Mom!
The rest of the evening went really well, except for the abrupt end that hit around 10:30, when my God-Son Jeremy, after an understandably exciting and long Christmas-Eve, was strung out and tired. So much so in fact, that after getting his “big gift”, the train set pic, he did what any five year old pooped out but over zealous kid does on Christmas when told by his parents he can’t open the “big gift” now: complete meltdown! 
Quite the tantrum, so the family packed up an left with the little guy steaming… oh well we had some good fun anyways. Besides, if I’m still blogging in five years time, I might be writing the same thing about Sam!
Here are just some of the pics from the evening, enjoy: