Mike, Jill, Lucy, & Wubie!

Christmas, 2009 from Mike C on Vimeo.

I wrote a post for last Christmas that included pictures but never got around to making a video until now. So here it is, a video of our Christmas 2009 get-together with friends and family.

Note: if the video stutters, click on the “HD is On” button so that it changes to “HD is Off.”

Music used:

• Christmas Time Is Here by the Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Theme from the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack
• Dinah by Django Reinhardt from The Classic Early Recordings, Vol 1

Christmas Eve (2009) from Mike C on Vimeo.

Last year we posted a video of the kid making a Christmas eve snack plate for Father Christmas and his reindeer. I remember being pretty stoked with the video because it actually displayed Lucy saying a few words, a rare happening back then.

Boy, how times have changed!

The kid’s vocabulary has exploded over the past twelve months. Where once stood a toddler making tentative attempts at lone, monosyllabic words, we now have a little girl who speaks in complete sentences and even improvises songs! Is that cool or what? She even plays jokes now:

“Mommy, I have a present for you!” = “my diaper is full!”
Hilarity ensues for all involved (except mommy.)

It was neat having a cute little baby. I treasure that time and occasionally find myself getting nostalgic for a long-gone version of Lucy, a phase the kid has outgrown and discarded. However, this new kid, the one we’re actually able to have conversations with, is extremely cool. I can’t wait until she’s old enough where we can both play pranks on her mommy!

• Music: “Jingle Bells” and “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” from Christmas Album by Herb Alpert And The Tijuana Brass

Below are a few Christmas pics, including a few from our Christmas get-together at Gma Vita’s place. More pics can be found here.

Here’s Lucy on Christmas eve preparing some snacks for Santa and his reindeer before she heads off to bed. She put a lot of thought into what she picked out, especially for the reindeer. Her final decision: reindeer would want carrots. Lots of carrots.

Christmas morning. Lucy awoke to find a fully assembled train set in front of the tree. Score! After some gift unwrapping, she was also greeted by a trio of dolls, an easel, and a stocking full of treats.

Speaking of treats, the snacks she’d left out the night before had been eaten—and it wasn’t Wubert (we checked.) Santa and his reindeer must have been pretty hungry on their busiest of nights!

Later, we went to spend Christmas day with family at Gma Vita’s. While there, Lucy got a chance to help her cousin Rachel on a hunt for lemons in the backyard.

When they couldn’t find enough lemons on the ground to fit their needs, Rachel used a rather large stick to persuade the lemon tree to part with a few more yellow fruits. THWACK! Lucy helped with the gathering.

Later, it was lots of food, family, gifts, and thanks. Though we missed Larry & Nina (Texas) , and Tisa and Jim (Hawaii), we were lucky enough to have Sam and family make the drive from Oregon.

Like always, we noticed how big all the kids are getting. We also noticed how many of the kids are now full fledged adults (yep, it happens fast!) Thanks to everyone for a great Christmas and Christmas Eve. We hope to see everyone again real soon. Lucy will bring the lemons.

We had a nice Christmas eve get-together with family. Lucy got a chance to see some of her favorite people and open some presents, two things that always add up to a good day in her book. I’ve posted some pics below. For more pics, please click here.

Lucy got a reply to her letter from Father Christmas…

She was particularly enchanted by the drawings of cat and dog…

They look just like the ones in her book!

Her first question upon seeing the letter was a matter-of-fact ‘what did he say about the train set’….I guess she’ll just have to wait and see.

We were reading one of Lucy’s fave books, Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, when Lucy decided it was about time to write her letter to Father Christmas.

We got out her letter-writing kit, and with some prompting, she dictated to me:

Dear Father Christmas,

I like your reindeer. I would like a train set. And Wubert would like a dry towel.

(The dry towel being for after he got out of the tub and was a “soggy moggy.”)

I left the room for a moment, and when I came back, she had started to write another letter in her own hand. So I left her to it.

She used all the stamps on her letter, just in case.

A bit later I wandered back in to see Wubert in the midst of creating his own letter. I suspect he did not want a dry towel after all…and was making his wishes known.

We sent the letters out the next day. We’ll keep an eye on the post and report any interesting mail.

Christmas (2008) from Mike C on Vimeo.

Here are some Christmas 2008 photos and videos. For the first video above, I strung together a few pics taken at Grandma Vita’s on Christmas (along with a couple of pics Sam and Mirjana sent of a snow-covered Oregon).

• Music: Mostly “Jingle Bells” from Boogie Woogie Christmas by Brian Setzer Orchestra (with a little bit of Herb Alpert at the beginning and end)

Christmas Dancing (2008) from Mike C on Vimeo.

This second video shows some of the kids being kids.

A quick aside: one neat thing Jill noticed at the get-together: right in the middle of a christmas scene Grandma Vita had put together, making itself right at home among the miniature ceramic christmas trees, houses, and Dickens-like characters, was the Galileo 7. How cool is that?

Christmas Eve (2008) from Mike C on Vimeo.

Here’s a video of Lucy and her mom leaving out a few items for Santa Claus last night. The kid actually does a bit of talking in this one!

Music: “Winter Wonderland” from Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Christmas Album by Herb Alpert

Good morning. It’s a little past midnight, and everyone’s asleep—even Wubert. Earlier today (or more exactly yesterday, if you’re a stickler for accuracy) The Mrs. and I packaged the kid into the car and trundled off to the hospital to meet up with Lucy’s Gma Susan, Gpa Peter, Auntie Laura, and Uncle John.

There, we opened gifts, ate some cake, and took a few pics of Lucy’s first Christmas eve.

View More Words and Pictures Here.