Day Of.

Briton and I imagined the kids would come barreling down the hallway at the crack of dawn, eager to see what Santa brought. Uh, no. They woke up at 10 a.m. After breakfast, at 10:30am, we finally convinced them to check if Santa came... (YouTube link).

Mom: "Who did it come from?"
Talmage: "Costco!" (i.e. Heather).

Ah, Costco. The source of all things good.

As you see, Sydney, ignored during the bike exploration, was off to a rocky start. She refused to succumb to the commercialization of Christmas the rest of the morning. Above it all, to almost every proffered gift she replied, "Don't want it!"

Christmas of the Lego:

Talmage and dad have been busy creating all manner of Lego constructions the past several days - robots, doodie cars, dumptrucks (Thanks, G&G Barker), spaceships, etc.


Once the presents were opened, Syd warmed up to the new toys:
She's been really cute to watch as she mothers her doll and bear. She pretends to feed them, takes them on walks, wraps them in blankies and kisses them. Oh! And the bracelets. Sydney likes to accessorize! It is something innate, as she definitely didn't learn it from watching her mother. A good friend who understands femininity gave Syd some bracelets. She wears them all the time.

Anywaaay. Moving on ...
We had fun with the Farrer's that night.

Here's a spontaneous re-enactment of the nativity. The Transformer as Mary, and Darth Vader as Joseph:

One funny story:
Heather gave Sydney a box of high-heel dress up shoes. Cheaply-made plastic things. Pink and purple, with gems or fluffy-fluff at the toes. We were in the living room chatting, when Joseph, who is three times Talmage's size, comes mincing down the hallway in a pair of T's summer-time pj's. i.e. short-short pj bottoms and short-sleeve t-shirt. He not only is he wearing the skin-tight pj's, but he is also prancing in Syd's new plastic high heels. With the shortie-shorts, heels and luscious curly locks, he looks very much like a hooker. A very giggly, happy hooker. We busted up and that really got him going, so he started dancing a jig in the heels. Except he kept slipping off, regaining balance, and dancing some more. Now he was a very giggly, happy, drunk hooker. The act ended when the fine engineering-al structure of the shoe gave out and they splintered to pieces. Cheap shoes. Priceless moment.