First Christmas

First Christmas

For those that know me well, you know that I’m crazy about Christmas. I’m a complete geek about it.  I start listening to Christmas music around Thanksgiving, sometimes even earlier.  I can watch It's a Wonderful Life over and over again and never get sick of it (and still tear up when Mary welcomes George Bailey home on their wedding night, and again when Harry tells George he’s the richest man in town).

Welcome home, Mr. Bailey.

I’m pretty sure my love of Christmas started because my mom is an even bigger nut about it than me.  What’s lucky is that I happened to marry a man who is equally as geeky about Christmas as myself.  We decorate the house not just with a tree (which Andy insists must be REAL and at least 8 ft high), but with our Christmas village and Byers’ Carolers too.  We put up wreaths, deer and lights outside and inside we have advent calendars, poinsettias and Christmas cookies galore.  

Byers' Carolers

Christmas Village

Last year we spent the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas going to the Christkindlmarkts in Europe.  We did Munich, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague.  It was magic.  

6 years ago Andy proposed to me on Christmas Eve.  

Christmas 2006

It's clearly a very special time of year for us, and this year expecting a baby made the whole Christmas season even more magical.  Having my mom here for 2 whole weeks near Christmas was also amazing.  We decorated the Christmas tree together – the first tree we have decorated together in almost 10 years.  We went Christmas shopping, set up the Christmas village together, made and decorated Christmas cookies, and watched everything from White Christmas to Elf. It was fantastic.  (And it made coming home from the hospital after the first failed induction much easier on me). 

Despite my crazy, over-the-top obsession with Christmas, however, were it not for Andy… this year we would have had A Christmas Story style Christmas dinner.  The run up to Christmas WAS magical this year, but by the time actual Christmas Eve came around I felt like all I could manage to accomplish in a day was feeding Tess. I had anticipated needing to nurse her every 2-3 hours as the nurses, lactation consultants, books and breastfeeding course instructors told us… but I think Tess went through a growth spurt right in time for Christmas or something and wanted to feed constantly.  Either that or she was simply engaging in the same yuletide gluttony WE normally do this time of year. 

"FEED ME!!!"

All day on Christmas Eve I would nurse at least 20 minutes on one side, then 20 minutes on the other… put her down and 20 minutes later she’d want to eat again.  When she’d cry, we’d check to see if she needed to be changed, burped, etc but all she would do is root or try to stick her fingers in her mouth and it’d be clear she was just hungry. And when I’d offer a feeding, she would chomp down and go to town for another 20+ minutes.  Up until Dec 24, she would be pretty consistent and want to eat every 2-3 hours but then out of the blue she turned into a hungry, hungry hippo for the holiday. 

 "Take this damn dress off and FEED ME!!!!"

I was freaking out about it, because I just wasn’t sure what I should do.  My first instinct was, if she’s hungry, she’s hungry and needs to eat.  But some of the books I read said it was important for babies to be on a schedule and to keep them on a strict 2-3 hour feeding timeline.  But what could I do if she wanted to eat again after 45 minutes?  Letting a baby “cry it out” who just wants to he held is one thing, but letting a hungry infact wail for an hour??? I couldn’t face it. 

Then I started to convince myself that I wasn’t producing enough milk, because I had no idea how much she was actually taking in when she’d nurse.  On top of that, my nipples were KILLING ME!  So while I didn’t really want to, I finally had to give in and give her some formula… quite a bit of formula in the end.  I was pretty emotional about it all to be honest (and then when she didn’t poo for 14 hours after having the formula I felt even worse about it).  But by Christmas morning I just came to terms with the fact that she would want to nurse on and off throughout the day and I was okay with it.  It was much easier to deal with when I was prepared for it and just decided to feed on demand.   But while I wasn’t an emotional basket case about it on Christmas, it still was all I could do just to feed her.  If it were up to me, we would have had “Chinese Turkey” from the local Chinese restaurant like Ralphie and his family because cooking and cleaning the kitchen was not even in my vocabulary that day. 

But Andy was incredible and while I worked all day on feeding Tess, he worked all day on feeding us!  He made scrambled eggs served with smoked salmon for breakfast – and Tess was kind enough to be quiet for 20 minutes while we ate.  Reason enough to celebrate.  Then for Christmas lunch he roasted a pheasant AND a small ham, served with duck fat roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and Brussels sprouts. It was a feast and we probably could have had 6+ for Christmas lunch.  (He even had the kitchen spotless by the end of the day as well).   

In the end our little family all ate like kings for Christmas.  It was really nice that we were able to still have our Christmas traditions, and celebrate the holiday the way we love to, even though life is pretty much turned upside down and we are still trying to figure out the “new normal” around here.