Christmas Vignettes II: Gifts at Home

Christmas is a terrible time to take candid pictures of small children. They do not hold still. They do not open their presents while facing the camera. They do not pause between presents to pose with their new stuffed animal/puzzle/book/dinosaur slippers. Futhermore, Christmas events rarely take place outdoors (at least, not in the greater Washington, D.C. area), so, with our camera, a flash is almost always necessary.

Therefore, what you are about to see is a set of largely lousy pictures of my children opening/enjoying their gifts. What can I say? I am working under the assumption that the grandparents would rather see bad pictures than no pictures at all!

I'll begin with the pictures from our first gift exchange, with just the four of us Wilcoxes. This actually took place early in December (more on that later). Here is Dave, helping the kids open their first present from us.

It was a super simple wooden nativity set that the kids can play with. I got it here. I do love fancier creches and nativity scenes and would be delighted to own one some day, but this is perfect for us for now. Meg and Matthew played with it to their heart's content without ever having to hear "no touch." I also like the idea of using it together during family times to tell the story of Jesus' birth. Here's what it looks like all set up. (Mary is missing in this picture... I'm sure we'll find her... some time... )

Here's Megger hanging her new zebra ornament on George Washington. We have a tradition of giving the kids ornaments in their stockings each year. That way, when they go out on their own and want a Christmas tree, they'll already own some decorations.

Me and the kids opening stockings...

Meg pulling out some new puzzles...

Our girl got LOTS of puzzles this year, which is great. She started learning to do simple jigsaw puzzles in the last few months and really enjoys them. I'm grateful to have many different options so we can keep it interesting for her!

Here's Matthew giving Daddy the present that we made for him. Actually, if you look closely, you can see that he was having some trouble with a "giving" part.

Meg's big gift from us was a (da-da-da-dah!)...

(Yes, it has a seat for Anna on the back of it. No, we did not know that when we bought it.)

And of course, if you get your child a bike, you also have to get her a...

To finish up, a couple of videos, one of each kid "opening" a bike/trike. I apologize for the quality--you really lose something in the translation when you upload to YouTube.

(To the Grandma and Grandpa in Michigan--fear not, we know that you can't do videos with your slow connection. We'll burn you a DVD and get it in the mail soon.)