Norah's First Christmas (Part I)

As promised, here is my first installment of Norah's "First Christmas". I'll have to break this down into two sessions, because let's just say we did a LOT of celebrating!

I've been looking forward to our first Christmas as parents since we found out we were expecting, and I can honestly say, I was not disappointed in any way.

Saturday, December 23rd, we kicked off our celebration with our annual Gilmore Family Christmas at Memaw's. We took our traditional "Grandkids with Memaw" and "Kids with Memaw" pictures, had plenty to eat (including Uncle Wayne's famous peanut brittle and delicious chex mix!), and had a blast playing Catch Phrase. This year there were 28 of us, including Melissa's new fiance, David, Amanda's boyfriend, Trae, and of course, Norah!

Sunday morning, Christmas Eve day, a vast majority of the Gilmore clan attended worship together at Central Church of Christ in Bryan (where most of us grew up attending--including Jason and me). It is always special worshipping with our family. Norah got to wear her Christmas dress, which she calls "Pree!" (Pretty) and she looked just that. Braden Bomnskie asked if "Miss Norah" could go for a ride around the church building with him in his wagon. She had a ball!


Sunday evening, we celebrated with Grammy & Grandpa Gilmore, AA & Trae, and Uncle Johnny at the Gilmore house. We opened gifts and played games until nearly midnight. It was a lot of fun cutting loose with my family, and getting to know Trae even better. (Games always bring out every one's personality even more--we always have so much fun!) Amanda and I got to enjoy some much-needed "Sister Time". Its always hard saying goodbye when its time for her to head home, but I'm hoping we'll see each other again soon, since someone special in both our lives will be celebrating her first birthday in less than a month.

Grandpa read the Nativity story with Norah. (Jason and I gave her a really sweet touchy-feely Nativity board book, to go along with "The Night Before Christmas" to be sure she gets the real message behind Christmas). I hope this will be a tradition for us in years to come. She sure loves her Grandpa! (And he's pretty crazy about her, too)


Norah didn't exactly get what was going on when we opened presents, but she definitely kept herself (and the rest of us) entertained. She climbed "Mt. Present" and finally got to play with some of those "forbidden ribbons"! I had to laugh because by the end of the Christmas season, she had begun stealing ribbons from our packages and trying with all her might to tie them around the back of her head. I wish I had a picture, because it was such a sight! She never wears headbands, so I don't know where she got the idea, but she did it time and time again! We finally helped her tie a couple so they'd stay, and you could tell she felt beautiful by the way she beamed at us.

Jason and I got home around 12:30am. Norah was sacked out and easily transferred from her carseat into her crib. Jason, jokinginly asked (for about the 12th time) if we could "Crack 'em open", and I surprised him by replying, "Yeah, why not!?" I figured it would be more special to open our gifts to one another while Norah was happily sleeping in her bed, when we could actually talk and enjoy some special time together.

I know I will always have a good memory of the two of us opening presents in the wee hours of Christmas morning, our first year as parents. Jason finally got to open his beloved disc golf basket. (He assembled it right there in our living room at 12:45!) We finally called it a night and turned in around 1:30am.







Christmas morning, everyone slept late. I woke up around 8:30 to make an oatmeal pie for lunch at the Robinson's. I put the pie in the oven and headed for the shower, when I got a strong whiff of that unmistakable smell of something on fire...not burning food in the oven, we're talking the overwhelming fumes of something ablaze. I woke Jason and we both dashed into the kitchen, where billowing smoke was pouring out of the oven. I opened the oven to discover that I had knocked a potholder into the oven. I grabbed it with a pair of tongs and pitched it into a sink full of water. We're still working on getting rid of the burnt smell, but on the bright side, it was one of my old, blue potholders (now replaced by my pretty, new red ones), and our house is still in tact.

After Jason got rid of the smoke (and I finished the shower I was about to start when we discovered the burning potholder), Norah awoke in her usual, happy morning mood. We fed her a little breakfast, and commenced with our present-opening.

Jason and I did most of the tearing of the paper, but we let her help. She enjoyed the ribbons the most (naturally), with the exception of one package from Gramps. Gramps had tied a little snowman jingle bell to the top of one of the gifts she gave Norah. Norah played with that bell for the longest time. You never would have guessed she had any new toys--she was just content to jingle the morning away. We saved it to hang on the tree in years to come.





She went for a Christmas victory lap on her new push-car toy (a great gift from Jenny & Daniel), before we loaded up the car to head out to the Robinson family Christmas (after being prompted by 2 phone calls from Aunt Paige on behalf of Uncle Grant, who was ready to "Crack 'em open!")

Ok, this is probably the longest blog entry I've ever made, so I'm gonna call it a night, but stay tuned for the riveting conclusion of our Christmas adventures, coming soon!