The Neverending Christmas

Christmas goes by too quickly. One day its here, and then its over. 3-4 weeks of preparation for just 1 day of celebration. Then its just a long wait until next year. That's what I used to think. This year, I'm not so sure.

It started on Christmas Eve morning. Clearly Kaylani's not old enough to truly appreciate Santa/Christmas since we had to wait for her to wake up. And when she finally did wake up (at 7:30am), we pumped her full of anticipation and excitement by talking about the presents and Santa. So when we went downstairs, she didn't give us the reaction we expected. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Kaylani rounded the corner and immediately saw the presents and said "Santa brought me gifts!" But the best part was when we told her to look at the cookies and milk she left for Santa. That got the following reaction:

"Santa ate all the cookies. And he drank all the milk! I'll be right back"

Then she picked up the cup and plate and went to the kitchen as Mommy and I stood there in disbelief at as she ignored all the unopened presents to clean! It was a great moment that we'll never forget. And after she came back, she went straight after all the presents (mostly hers, but also ours too). She opened everything from us and a few others, including a giant teddy bear (that she asked Santa for), a countless number of Dora related toys, and much more. But that was just the beginning of Christmas.

Sadly, we left most of that home (especially the giant teddy bear) and were off to Yin Yin and Yeh Yeh's house for the annual Tam family Christmas (which is always on Christmas Eve). There, she opened up more presents, including an awesome train table and a Geotrax set. For the rest of the day, she played played played, and in the morning, it was off to the next stop.

After a quick 5 hour Christmas Day drive, we made it to Titi Glenda's house for more present opening, which was a baby changing table/sink/highchair playset. She also got a new tricycle from Madrina Maria, and then a magnet book and xylophone from Titi Mayte and Tio Alan. And it didn't end there since she got a purse from Titi Carmen the next day, and a shopping cart of groceries from Titi Sonal a couple of days after that. So that brings us to December 28th, but we still weren't done.

New Year's Day might as well have been Christmas Day part 2 since Kaylani woke up to her train table actually assembled. Ever since she set eyes on it, she's been super excited and jumps all around while playing. She's actually so excited that she won't even let Papa play with it (which is a problem since its Papa's first train table too).

Anyways, now that we're well into 2011, you'd think Christmas was over, but you'd be wrong. We still have 1 more celebration coming up (3 Kings Day) which Mommy celebrated growing up in Puerto Rico. So we've got at least 1 more morning with a gift coming up, but with much less fanfare. And until Kaylani goes a few days without Christmas (or when we take down the tree...which will be interesting), she'll probably keep talking about Santa bringing her gifts everyday. In the meantime, here are some pictures from Christmas. Enjoy!