Christmas was a bit hectic this year. We moved a week before Christmas and barely had time to get up decorations before the 25th. But we did find time to do some festive stuff.
We went to the Festival of Lights at VanDusen Botanical Gardens, luckily on one of the few dry December evenings. Astrid had a blast riding the carousel multiple times.
We went to Christmas parties at my work, Astrid’s daycare, and Christina’s house.
We had have a lovely Christmas Eve/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice dinner at grandma’s place.
We started a new tradition with matching Christmas pajamas.
We opened Christmas presents with Baba and Gigi on skype and Astrid had a blast playing with her new toys and games. We try to minimize the focus on presents, but she still enjoyed the ones she got from her family – like her fort builder, binoculars, and new books.
2018 was Astrid’s 3rd Christmas, but the first one where she really got into the swing of things. She spent most of November saddened that Halloween was over and missing the giant inflatable Frankenstein at the community centre, but once the Christmas decorations went up she was super excited about Frosty the Snowman, singing carols (like Jingle Bells), and Christmas trees.
We decorated our small Christmas tree
Astrid was very excited to open her advent calendar each day
And we had fun making and decorating gingerbread cookies
We tried to get some good Christmas photos this year by doing a professional photo shoot, but it was a bit of a disaster as Astrid was in a foul mood. We still got a few decent shots out of it, so it wasn’t a complete waste.
Astrid had a Christmas party at daycare, featuring a visit from Santa Claus. She was really excited about it, until it was her turn to sit on Santa’s lap. Then it was all tears and acrobatics to try and escape. She wouldn’t even open the present Santa gave her, long after we had left the room. She’s not wrong though – there is something creepy about sitting on a funny looking stranger’s lap.
We’ve decided that as Astrid grows up we’re not going to pretend that Santa is real and that he only gives gifts to well behaved kids. The lying and blackmailing just doesn’t seem worth it. She’ll still get presents and a stocking on Christmas morning, but the presents will be from her family. This year, it wasn’t an issue as she never asked where the presents came from, she was only concerned that they were for her.
On Christmas Day we opened our stockings, made latkes for breakfast, opened the bigger gifts from relatives, and then played with toys. Astrid got the perfect amount of toys – a few new things to keep her interested without overwhelming her. She was most excited about her new toothbrush, the playdough ice cream shop (which was actually a present from last year that we kept in her closet and rewrapped this year), tinker toys, and penguin book.
In the afternoon we went over to Grandma’s for a traditional Ukrainian Christmas dinner with our extended Vancouver family, complete with kutia, borscht, perogies, cabbage rolls, beans, bread, pickles, sauerkraut, and non-traditional (but tasty) pumpkin pie. We were supposed to host the event, but with Grandma still on house arrest we brought all the food to her.
Astrid had fun playing with her cousins – they read stories, played doctor, and ran around playing hide-and-go seek. The age difference shrinks every year.
Emily and I have been thinking more about the Christmas traditions we want to establish. We’re pretty happy with stockings on Christmas morning with latkes for breakfast, and a traditional Ukrainian dinner with our extended family on Christmas Eve. I’m also committed to making an ornament each year with a photo of Astrid holding last year’s ornament – the recursion makes me happy (although I’m sure it will annoy Astrid at some point). Next year we want to start two new traditions – buying matching pajamas and a new family board game.
I didn’t go home to Manitoba for Christmas this year, which meant I missed the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner and the time spent playing board games in Baba’s basement. In an attempt to reproduce that in Vancouver, Emily and I hosted her family for a Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner. Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner is traditionally a 12-course “vegetarian” meal (which includes fish), but we had the additional complication of making it vegan and gluten-free.
