I'll blame Baby Sister, but my memory isn't just quite what it used to be...so I need to document these precious Christmas memories before they quickly fade away! I apologize there are no pictures to go along with them, hopefully I can get to them soon.
- Starting off the Christmas season on the day after Thanksgiving with Aunt Kiki and Gigi and a trip to see the Rockettes in downtown Memphis - I felt like it was a special way to honor Sutton's great-grandparents, Mama and Granddaddy Hubbard, who always made a special trip to Charleston to catch the show. They would have loved to be there with their great-grandson (who they had put in requests for long before Chris and I were even married!). Sutton was in awe of the Santa at the show and sat in his seat very well (for a 2 year old) sharing Mommy's popcorn.
- The first annual Northwood Drive Children's Christmas Ornament Decorating Party at Mimsi, Frank, Frank Jr. and Peter's house - Well, I'm hoping it's the "first annual" ;) We have such sweet neighbors and lots of little ones running around. Sutton loved playing with his friends and enjoyed decorating the ornaments (almost as much as he enjoyed undecorating the ornaments while they hung on the tree). We did have to endure a little fit as we left, but I blame it on the obscene amount of sugar Sutton consumed at the party (mostly while Mommy was too distracted chatting to notice handfulls of M&M's and cookies being shoveled into his mouth!).
- Our church's Breakfast with Santa - Sutton was thrilled to be having breakfast with Santa and all his church friends. It took a little while before he understood that Santa wouldn't always be in our Fellowship Hall, nor would he always be joining us for breakfast!
- The 3M Decatur Christmas Party and a ride on the Christmas Train - Sutton and I took a weekend to spend some fun time with Mimi and Poppy. Poppy had to show off his grandson to all his coworkers at the traditional 3M Christmas Party in Decatur. I'm not kidding when I say it's a tradition...this present-day-Mommy's picture was taken in Santa's lap at the party when I was younger than Sutton. It's even documented in the 3M newsletter. After all the fun at the party we headed for a ride on the Christmas train with Santa. The weather was freezing and the train was slow, but it was a TRAIN and SANTA was on it was all that mattered. We had rehearsed that he would tell Santa that he wanted trains for Christmas, but he must have seen the conductor with the candy cane because when Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas he declared, "Candy!"
- Sutton's first Christmas Program - I heard one parent in attendance sum up the experience perfectly, "It's like crack for parents!" Watching my sweet little boy up there singing and jingling his heart out made me realize how quickly he is growing up. It's also the first time I really noticed how much he looks like his Daddy's childhood pictures. Seriously, haircut and all...Sutton's blonde hair sets him apart, though. He did great up on stage and it warmed my heart to see him check to make sure Mommy, Daddy and Mimi were in the audience before they began :)
- "Frosty the Snowman" - Sutton's favorite Christmas song to sing and sing and sing. Everywhere we'd go he'd be blasting out the lyrics that he learned in his "Frosty" book. It was adorable. Also, Frosty lived in the front yard of our across-the-street neighbors and we constantly had to look to see if he was awake. We were so sad to see Frosty go "Thumpty-thump-thump" after New Year's.
- Driving around looking at Christmas lights - at some point Sutton took to pointing at every decorated yard we passed and saying, "That one's pretty. That one's my favorite!"
- Sutton giving pretend Christmas sprinkles to Baby Sister (who he insists should be named "Mommy") - He'd been busy making gingerbread men with Gigi earlier in the evening and walked around that night with the closed (thank goodness) sprinkle container giving everyone pretend sprinkles, making sure not to forget Baby Sister!
- Chris feeling Baby Sister move for the first time - this little girl is already a Daddy's girl from what we can tell. She can be flipping and kicking all over the place and all he has to do is lay a hand on my belly and she settles right down. Well, she was apparantly really enjoying the beautiful Christmas service music at our church Sunday before Christmas (as was Mommy) and I told Chris to try to feel her. She rared back and gave him swift kick that made all of us jump! She's our precious reminder of God's grace and love and is blessed with some serious soccer skills :)
- The Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest among my siblings and our spouses - because there was no Fincher Family Christmas Eve theme, as is tradition, we decided to create our own, and well, so this one is really best explained in pictures ;)
- Reading Sutton the story of Christmas (the REAL one from the Bible ;) ) on Christmas Eve. He tells me Mary had a baby in her tummy like Mommy has a baby in her tummy and that he wants to hear more stories about the angels. My heart melted...
It's more than amazing to have such a sweet little one that can carry on conversations about all that is special at Christmas and another sweet little one making me all round and jolly! Christmas 2009 was "my favorite" ;)
