Our Christmas Celebration

Going through this tragedy, there were a few glimmers of thankfulness, including the fact that Nicholas and William are so young, they will hopefully not remember most of this difficult experience. Another good thing, Christmas was going to be celebrated when we were able to all be home together, not when the calendar told us.

With our fingers crossed William would not start a bad reaction to his 3 consecutive days of chemo, we planned to celebrate on the 26th. The night before, Nicholas agreed to take down his prized Christmas list that he so proudly had hanging on the door to the garage to "see it when I'm playing..." He took one last inventory of his requested gifts...

...left the biggest carrot he could find for Santa, along with some cookies and two drink boxes (one for Santa and one for Nicholas the next morning).

Santa was fully accommodating to our family's needs - wahooo!

Nicholas squealed in excitement to see a kitchen set waiting for him, especially one with a washing machine! He quickly got on the phone to thank Santa, "What?...Oh, hello, Santa....I'm just playing in my kitchen now...okay?...bye!"

William was happy with his new penguin plate.

Someday it will have food on it, buddy!

It was especially nice to have Grammy and Poppie spend the previous night with us so they were there first thing in the morning for all the fun!

Still cookin' in his new kitchen, Nicholas insisted everyone don a bib with him for all the good eats he was whipping up.

We took a break for breakfast, when it suddenly occurred to Nicholas that his Christmas list was missing. After explaining time and time again that Santa takes it when he comes to bring toys, we luckily found it next to the front door...that silly Santa must have dropped it on his way out. Crisis averted ---phew!

During breakfast, Nicholas realized he had not gotten the robot with the yellow remote control he so very-much wanted from Santa. For those who had not heard the story of the robot, Nicholas had been drooling over this thing for weeks. With so many family members helping to watch him while William was hospitalized, he had plenty of people to tell how that was exactly what he wanted from Santa. Let's just say the last minute feeling of guilt and "I'd do anything to make my baby happy right now" overcame this worn-out Mama...and I begged Santa for it too!

After a quick comparison of the robot on his list to the one in the box, Nicholas was very excited to get these new gadgets out of the box. Batteries in and....

a huge meltdown!

"Could you turn it off...turn it off! Turn it off please Daddy!!!"

Once off, Nicholas said with great relief, "Oh boy, that's an outside toy! We need to put it in the garage...its an outside toy!"

Tissue paper was William's favorite gift this year.