Darci's First Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Darci. We drove to Salem to see her McCoy Grandparents and her Auntie Emily, and dogs Duke and Daisy too. The ride in the van was 7 hours, and there were a few sections where she was tired of being strapped into her seat, but for the most part she did really well. I sat in the back with her most of the trip and fed her cheerios and she drank water from her sippy cup, along with her regular bottles. I also ‘fed’ her toy after toy, watching as she gleefully dropped them on the other side of her seat where Mommy couldn’t reach.

Christmas Eve we arrived around bedtime, and enjoyed our traditional Christmas Eve fare of little smokies, cheese and sausage with crackers, and other yummies. Darci had a rough night the first night, she had a little trouble being out of her routine and in a new place. So she slept most of the night on Mommy, but that was ok, it’s been many months since we’ve done that.

In the morning Darci woke us with her usual 6:30 AM reveille and we joined Emily in the living room to see what Santa brought. He didn’t miss anyone in the house, there were stockings for each of us including Duke and Daisy. Darci got a sock monkey (so cute!), some crayola markers for little bitty hands, a couple of teething toys, and a baby’s first Christmas t-shirt, which I now realize we didn’t put on her! I guess there were too many things going on at once.

Gift opening commenced and wow, did Darci ever have a lot of presents. With four sets of Grandparents (Burns, Fox/Sacry, McCoy, and Great-grandparents Fox) she is one lucky little girl. She wasn’t too interested in opening the presents, but she did enjoy playing with the bows and of course playing with each toy after it was wrestled from the packaging. Lights and music were featured in many of her gifts.

I don’t know if I can list all of her toys from memory, but she got a ride on toy airplane with Elmo on it, the Playschool barn that makes animal sounds, a shape sorter bucket, the playschool chatter telephone and popper (classics!), some super adorable outfits, and a ton of books. She loves books and now has quite a nice library, mostly thanks to her Nana Fox. Thank you to everyone who gave her such cool presents, she has been enjoying all of them!

We all got to stay in our pjs for a while on Christmas, then into some nice clothes for an awesome Christmas dinner of prime rib, potatoes, scalloped corn, Amy’s amazing homemade apple and pumpkin pies. Darci had a few bites of corn, but her meal mainly consisted of a jar of turkey and veggies baby food, followed by cereal with yams. She wore her beautiful Christmas dress that Grandma and Grandpa Burns sent and we got some photos with Emily by the Christmas tree. Just by chance Emily had the same color dress as Darci!

We enjoyed post Christmas Chinese food the next night, after a day of pie for breakfast and a second chance at Christmas dinner for lunch. Thank you to Dad and Amy for hosting us, we had a great time! We headed home Sunday morning and had a nice drive, arriving just before dark. Darci did well in the car again, and this time she napped a bit more.

Now the bags are almost unpacked and the living room looks like a hurricane blew through a toy shop. It was a wonderful holiday; I wish we could have spent it with all the people we love.