Merry Christmas and other December events

Christmas has come and gone and although Ryan and I both had a week and a half off work, it was still a very busy time.

On Christmas morning, Austin still wasn't quite old enough to understand what was going on -- and at first he was more interested in playing with the toys in his toy box than he was in opening the presents under the tree. But after a little coaxing, he started to tear at the paper.

But, it took three hours to open all six gifts under the tree, because after each opening, he had to play with the new toy for awhile. It's a good thing we didn't have to be anywhere until Christmas dinner.We spent Christmas dinner with my family in Brampton (the first time in 17 years my family has not been in Montreal for Christmas) and once again, spent a fair bit of time watching Austin open presents. He liked ripping at the paper, but after a couple of gifts, he would tire of the game and be more interested in playing with the toys than opening the rest of the gifts.

Everyone keeps telling me though, that next year, he'll really understand Santa and will want to open all the gifts at once!

On Boxing Day, we drove to London where we spent a day and a half with Ryan's dad and then a day and a half with Ryan's mom. Of course, once again, there were more presents to open and more toys to play with.

While visiting Ryan's dad, Ryan and Grandpa took Austin to the stables to visit aunt Jamie's horse. Austin had a great time checking out the horse, following the horse and sitting on the horse. And at Nana's the next day, Austin LOVED chasing the dogs -- especially Abby -- who actually loved being 'caught'. Austin would run around the room shouting Abba, Abba until he caught her and pulled her onto his lap.
Other December happenings

Hannukah

As my mother is Jewish and my father is Protestant, when I was growing up, the tradition in my house was always to celebrate both holidays. So every year, we would put up the Christmas tree and light the menora for Hannukah. In fact, the first Christmas that I had my own apartment, my parents gave me my own menora as a Christmas present.

This year, we decided to teach Austin about lighting the menora and every night he helped light the candles. By the seventh and eighth night, he would get home at the end of the day and go right to where the menora was sitting, asking to light the candles.The first big snowfall
On a Sunday, about a week or so before Christmas, Toronto was graced with about 30 centimetres of snow in a 24-hour period. (And for you non-Torontonians, this is a lot of snow. Last year, I don't think we saw snow until almost February and even then there wasn't much of it.) That much snow, meant shovelling out the driveway -- and we figured we might as well put Austin to work in teaching him how to shovel.

He actually seemed to have a lot of fun trying to copy mommy and daddy, although any snow he did manage to get on his little shovel never made it onto the snowbank.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was spent at our friends' Rob and Vone's house for a family-friendly party. In all, I think we were about a dozen adults and five kids. We managed to get this family shot snapped before Austin started to tire out.
I guess I'm all caught up on events for now. Happy New Year to all!