Baby’s first Christmas
I was so excited for T’s first Christmas. As my husband and I were both in London for the first time in years I’d initially thought about hosting. That idea came and went pretty quickly and we spent a few days at his mum’s first in Taunton, popped back to London, then headed to my mum’s in Birmingham.
We’ve spent ALOT of time in the car. The weather was really bad when we started out for Somerset. It took us 6 hours to get there. I was feeling rotten with a cold and worried about the effects of such a long journey on the baby. Fortunately she slept for the most part. We stopped near Swindon for me to change her and feed her but that was the only stop we had to make.
My husband’s mum had a house full. My family is small so it’s still a novelty for me to have lots of people around and T loved it too. For the first night there were 10 of us staying over. My husband’s eldest sister is 9 months pregnant and despite having her hands full with 3 girls she’s glowing and seems to be full of life. When I was 9 months pregnant I could barely get out of bed.
T’s cousins were enthralled by her and it was so cool to see her interacting with other children. T is grandchild number 9 for my mother-in-law. This year, each of my husband’s 3 sisters have been pregnant, along with me. Grandchild number 8 arrived in June of this year, then came T, number 10 is due any day and number 11 is due in April. T is so lucky to have so many cousins.
After Taunton we came home, slept, packed up the car again and set out for Birmingham. We got here on Christmas Eve and my friend Angela joined us for dinner spontaneously. I warmed up the leftover mulled wine from the night before and it felt really Christmassy.
My Mum had found the biggest tree I’ve ever seen in our house. She bought it last minute for a bargain 10 quid. It’s about 8 feet tall and really chunky. Too chunky it turned out as I awoke on Christmas morning to find the tree upturned on the dining room floor after crashing to the ground in the night, soaking half of the presents in the process.
Luckily there wasn’t any real damage, just a few soggy presents. We had a lovely lazy day with lots of food and a bit too much champagne. T received some amazing presents. I opted to put her in her first dress (courtesy of my good friend Catherine) instead of the reindeer suit. Her daddy wore the santa suit I got him as a surprise. I have tons of photos to show T when she’s old enough to understand how silly her daddy looked! It was a really nice relaxing Christmas.
Okay, now I’m a believer, there really is a Santa Claus!
For the past week or so my husband has been asking me what I want for Christmas. It started after he observed with envy one of his co-workers working his way through a neat, thorough and extensive Christmas wish-list from his girlfriend. My husband thought it was an excellent idea and asked me to do the same.
I mulled it over and for the first time in a long time I couldn’t really think of anything. The only thing I really, really wanted was 8 hours sleep.
Last night T slept from 12.30am to 9am this morning. I still can’t quite believe it. When my husband’s alarm went off at 7.50am I woke up stunned. I quickly checked T was still breathing and she was. She was snuggled next to the wall of her moses basket sucking her fingers with her eyes firmly shut.
Sucking her fingers is T’s new favourite thing to do, at first she struggled to keep her hand in her mouth but now she’s a pro.
I decided to leave her in peace. At 9am she was still snoozing but I opted to get her up at that point as I really wanted to change her nappy and feed her. She didn’t cry or protest once. She seemed just as refreshed from marathon sleep as I was.
I’m still in shock. Thank you Santa!
Mulled wine and mince pies!
Last night I had a mini Christmas party with a few close friends.
Planning a gathering with a baby was a new experience. Pre-baby if I was having people over I could do everything in one day. Post-baby I have to spread the preparation across 3 days to fit everything in during T’s sleeps.
In my past life I’d create workback schedules for my job that usually involved stuff like identifying TV opportunities, drafting powerpoint presentations and reviewing budgets. Now my workback schedules are purely domestic. For my mulled wine and mince pies night it covered buying groceries online from Sainsburys, cleaning the flat, baking cupcakes, dashing to Tesco to buy the things I forgot to include in my Sainsbury’s order, making mini-quiches and wrapping presents.
It was worth it though, it was so nice having my friends over, especially as I don’t go out anymore so this was my one Christmas party for the year. They all took turns holding T, who wore a little mini Santa hat and behaved beautifully.
Unlike my pre-T gatherings, this one wrapped up by 10pm. At that point I then cleared all the dishes, bathed, changed and fed the baby, handed T over to her daddy while I loaded the dishwasher, unloaded the washing machine and got myself ready for bed. By this point it was 12.30am and I was exhausted. However, T slept soundly in her basket without a fight for the first time in ages which really was the icing on the cake of a lovely night.
Countdown to Christmas
I have always loved the build up to Christmas. I love Christmas decorations, Christmas parties, Christmas carols, Christmas food, Christmas present shopping, Christmas parties… ever year I countdown the days to the festivities.
This year was already going to be special as I won’t have to do my regular 10,000 mile round trip to visit my loved ones over the holidays. My husband and I have been together for 7 years and married for just over one year yet we’ve never spent Christmas Day together. This year is extra, extra special is that it will be our first Christmas as family.
I know T won’t remember her first Christmas but I know I’ll never forget it. I’m so excited! I’ve already bought her a stocking and her presents from Santa are waiting to be wrapped. I never thought I’d be the type of mother who would dress up their defenceless little one for Christmas, but there I was, back in October, buying T the cutest little Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer outfit. My husband took it in his stride, but later I heard him referring to T’s rabbit costume. A rabbit?? Since when do rabbits have antlers?
I’ve bought pretty much all of my Christmas gifts, mostly because I didn’t want to have the stress of last minute panicked shopping sprees with a hungry, wailing baby and a heavily loaded pram. Buying and wrapping presents is the bit I look forward to the most. Apart from eating. I’ve started gathering Christmas recipes and dreaming of mulled wine, mince pies and Christmas canapes.
I can’t wait!
