Cole's First Christmas

Well, we had four Christmases really. We had Christmas Eve, which we always spend with the Sharrow (Truedson) family. After church (which Cole slept through), we went back to Grandpa and Grandma Sharrow's house for dinner. There were 21 of us with Cole. After a delicious ham dinner, we got to open presents with the entire extended family. Cole had a blast eating the wrapping paper, but stayed up way too late. The next morning we had Christmas morning with just the three of us at our house. It was fun to have Cole open his presents in his pajamas. After we had opened presents, gotten dressed, had coffee, and fed Cole breakfast, people were finally starting to wake up back at Grandpa and Grandma Sharrow's house, so we went back there for immediate family presents (immediate family being Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Scott and Mikala, Uncle Todd and Stephanie, and the three of us). After presents we had another delicious meal of steak and shrimp before we headed down to Grandpa and Grandma Iverson's house in Forest Lake for yet more presents and food. Uncle Brad had flown in earlier Christmas day from California. Unfortunately, we are still getting used to the idea that we are parents now and obligated to catch every moment of our son's childhood on camera, so we are relying on our blog-stalking family members to email us some pics from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at the Sharrow house. Send them on to us, please, you know who you are (ahem, Sandy!)! These pictures are mostly from the Iverson Christmas.

Bentleyville

On the Saturday before Christmas, which I am certain was also the coldest day on record in Minnesota, we all decided to go to Bentleyville. We took three cars on some "back way" to the Cloquet area to see this place. If you can find it, you park and get on a school bus which shuttles you to "Bentleyville." There you find the biggest Christmas lights display you can imagine. They start setting up the lights in September every year. There is a huge entrance, an uptown, a downtown, a Santa, and Elvis impersonator, a S'more-making station with firepits, a popcorn house, a hot cider and cookies house, you name it. We were all about the food. Mostly because we needed the extra calories to stay warm. We were wondering whether the whole thing would be worth the trouble, and it turned out it was. We all came back to our house and had pizza and warmed up our chilled bones in the hot tub.

Oh Christmas Tree

Okay, so most of you will see this picture on our Christmas card (whenever we get those sent out), but it was worth posting anyway. We had to put the tree in the corner between the couch and loveseat with the ottoman in front of it as a barricade in order to keep curious hands from playing with the various hazards that our tree presents...electrical wires, glass ornaments, a thing full of water, a toppling risk...need I go on? Not to mention the very tempting presents that are wrapped in colorful paper just waiting to be torn open!

Smile for Santa?

Cole went to see Santa for the first time, and do you think he would smile for the picture? No. He was far more interested in pulling Santa's beard. As soon as he left Santa's lap, the trauma of the whole experience set in and the crying began. We were clearly torturing him, poor thing. We opted out on seeing the live reindeer after the tears...besides it was like a blizzard outside where good ol' Rudolph was. Maybe next year.