New family traditions (Day 98)
To be honest, I was really looking forward to today. I mean, Otto’s first Christmas Eve. My husband’s and my first hosting of our family Christmas dinner. Somehow, I was expecting it to be really magical.
And it was. It was great we all got together (I was especially glad my grandmother could join us, as she had a stroke two and a half years ago and is in a nursing home) and spend some quality time together.
I was also very certain that we’ll be able to do all in perfect time. The cooking, the decorating, gift-wrapping … And we most certainly did. My husband and I are an amazing team. Also, Otto was the perfect little baby all day. No fussing, a lot of smiling in his play gym and looking around what’s going on.
He was, of course, the star of the show and was quite content with having so much attention. Honestly, I was surprised how good he took all the handling from other people as my husband and I danced around the table.
During dinner, he sat in my husband’s lap and curiously looked around. I took him to bed around eight as he was really sleepy, and he slept until hours later when he was hungry. My husband and I got the chance to spend some more time in the “adult company” which for me, was great.
He got tons of presents and I was happy that all took our advice and got him useful things and not a bunch of stuffed animals. I was especially proud of us, as we decided to gift all our family members socks and also donated the money we would spend on gifts, to a charity that helps underprivileged children. We really are fortunate to have what we have and to be frank, we don’t need more stuff.
I’m grateful that Otto is born into a great family and that really could be seen with us all together like that. I hope he will enjoy these dinners when he gets a bit older as much as we did this first one. I hope, he will share our passion for the nice traditions we have set as a family.
I already wrote about these new traditions we started this year. This dinner being one of them. We agreed to have this family dinner each Christmas Eve, at six p.m. at our place, with all the family members invited. Hopefully, all will be able to come in the coming years. This has been my wish for a long time. To have a family of my own to host the Christmas Eve dinner.
Motherhood in numbers:
- diapers changed: five
- meals: two
- shower: one, with washed hair
