A Very Elmo Christmas

I can't sleep. So instead of counting sheep, I'm going to blog about Christmas. I've realized that I'm bad at writing about holidays. Maybe that's because it feels obligatory and forced and that's not really my style. Not that I don't like Christmas, I just don't like doing what I'm told. Ask my parents.

Anyhow, Christmas was great this year. We started getting Jay excited a few days early by giving him a pair of Elmo legs.

Okay, that's not entirely true but it sounds a lot better than: A few days before Christmas, I was a bad mom and ran completely out of pants for Jay. So I gave him a pair of my fuzzy red socks to wear while I did laundry and told him he was Elmo. To my credit, he loved it and ran around pointing to his feet yelling, "Elmo!" I think he even kissed his legs once, but I could be making that up.

Christmas day was fun because Jay finally seemed to understand the idea of presents. Joe and I got Jay this cute little Elmo rocking toy. It's a car that has buttons on the dash board to make Elmo talk and his mouth really moves. It also plays music.. as you can tell by Jay's dance moves:

This one's my favorite.

Did he just raise the roof? So my child.

Jay got a ton of good gifts from family this year. Including one genius Elmo sippy cup.

The belt on his head has nothing to do with it. I just think it's funny.

Here's Jay with the rest of his Elmo loot.

Notice his adorable Elmo jacket.

He's wild about this item. Pretty much every morning since Christmas Jay has brought this out of his room insisting that I put it on him. And he wears it until I peel it off him at nap time. True love folks.

Here's me saying, "Jay where's Elmo?"

Smart boy.

Speaking of which, is it not strange to anyone else that to a child there can be a million Elmos but only one Santa Claus? There's your deep thought for the day.

As for Joe and I, we got all things Wii. We got the actual Wii console (thanks to every contributing member of my family), and the Wii Fit (thanks to every contributing member of Joe's family), and some other cool games to work out with. We're both pretty anti-video game so we don't own any actual sit down games for it... which is really good because this thing is addictive. And if you're wondering, yes it really can give you a good workout. Day 2 I couldn't move.

It was a wonderful holiday season. I realize that this post has mainly focused on the materialistic parts of Christmas but it was so much more than that this year for me. I think for the first time in my life I really got a glimpse of the true meaning of Christ's birth. I've always known it but I guess I finally felt it. Maybe that's what being a parent does to you. I thought a lot about Mary and what her feelings must have been. And I thought a lot about how sad it must make our Heavenly Father to see what Christmas has become. My goal is to slow down next year and focus more on my Savior.
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." -Isaiah 9:6