We didn't take any "Christmas photos" this year but Joe sat in this basket this morning, so.

My office doesn't technically close for the holidays until Christmas Day and I sure as sugar plum fairies wasn't going to use vacation time on a day that is mostly just free lunch, champagne chugging, and leaving at two o'clock because who cares. So here I am. And here I will stay until Baby Joe wakes up from her nap, watching everyone else who didn't bring their baby to work walk out the door.

Here are some things I want to remember about this Christmas:

Zoë loves Christmas lights almost as much as the people in our neighborhood like stringing them up. There are some houses that go nuts and have dozens - literal dozens - of blow-up Christmas characters and light-up reindeer and music playing. There's also my personal favorite house, which has a single strand of lights hung halfheartedly over the top of a shrub. There's nothing to suggest that they did this in celebration of Christmas except that it didn't appear until December. I don't know who lives there but I love them. ANYWAY, our evening walk home from daycare is so delightful because Zoë says "OooooOOOH!" and points at things and scream laughs. Her very most favorite are the projector things that make red and green dots go everywhere. I don't know, like this:

Those are a very popular choice for some reason, and she could not be more pleased. 

The St. Nicholas Project. I wanted to participate in one of those programs where you choose a child's name from a tree or something and then you get them Christmas presents, but I didn't have a lot of extra money this year. (You know, as opposed to all the other years where I've had to flush money down the toilet because I just ran out of things to do with it.) So at the very last minute I reached out to my coworkers and asked if anyone would want to do it together, and between everyone's personal contributions and my very generous bosses' donations we were able to get toys and gifts and warm winter coats for three families. The whole process reminded me of how important it is to be involved and to be informed and to help when and where you can; for the last few years I've been extraordinarily preoccupied with myself and - to make this all about me - I needed a reminder.

I want to remember more things, like the salt dough ornaments we made and the baby angel Christmas tree decoration that doodle bug runs around with screaming "BABY!" but I also really want to leave because there aren't any mimosas left. So bye, Merry Christmas, I love you probably.



Edit, after Christmas actually happened: Every time Baby Joe opened a gift she said "Woww!" or "Ooh!" and something that sounded like it could be "Let's play!" One of the gifts was a teddy bear from a couple I know through work and the tag said "To Kira, Love Great Aunt Lynn XOXO." She also got a play broom and dustpan from her Grandma that I wound up sweeping our kitchen floor with because she still just wanted to walk around with the real one.