Kickin' Off the Christmas Season

Last week, my dad sent me the sweetest text message telling me that Rudolph was going to be on TV the next night and asking if Eden could come and watch it with him.  For some silly reason, that actually brought tears to my eyes.  Growing up, the first viewing of Rudolph each year was a big deal in our family, and I thought it was so cute that my dad wanted Eden's very first time watching it to be with him.  So the next night, Dustin, Eden and I headed over to my dad and Susie's house to eat dinner, let Eden take her bath in my dad and Susie's giant tub (she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES taking baths in their bathtub... it's much better than our tiny one) and watch Rudolph.  They even had a little red nose for Eden, but this is the best picture I managed to get of her wearing it.

 

Eden's attention span didn't quite last the full hour, but it was still so special to me to have us all watch Rudolph together.  I told Dustin when we were leaving that it was one of the best nights I'd had in a long time.  Her first Rudolph experience.  IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS, PEOPLE!

So that was our very first Christmas-y thing to do this year.

When we saw my mom on Thanksgiving, she gave Eden a little Christmas package with a reindeer book, a Christmas CD, some Christmas stickers and some window clings.  The window clings have been a HUGE hit.

Then we spent this past weekend in San Antonio.  On Saturday we took Eden to the zoo where she got to see Santa Claus.

She didn't cry this year, but she definitely didn't smile and she was very careful to not make eye contact or look directly at him.

Eden and I dressed Christmas-y.  Dustin never participates.

Every time we would walk away from an animal, Eden would shout, "MORE, MORE!"  "You wanna see more animals?"  "YEAH!"  Then she would run ahead of us, and we had to work hard to teach her to obey "stay with Mama and Daddy".  She was just so dang excited.

We stayed on the Riverwalk, and while Eden napped on Saturday afternoon, Dustin and I sat on our balcony overlooking the river drinking margaritas and listening to a mariachi band play "Feliz Navidad" a thousand times.  I freaking love San Antonio.

On Saturday night, we took a boat ride down the river to see all of the Christmas lights.  I think Eden liked it.

Just a little bit.  Maybe.

On Sunday we took Eden to SeaWorld's Christmas Celebration.

Attempt to take Eden's picture in front of the giant poinsettia tree:

 take 1

 take 2

 

 take 3

 

take 4 (and she stole part of the tree)

 

Okay, so I never got a good shot.  We had soooo much fun though.  Eden got to feed the sea lions.

 

She played at the park.

 

 

We watched all of the shows.

 

I was pretty amazed by the dolphins jumping in time to Christmas songs, but then we went and saw Shamu, and I was BLOWN AWAY!

 

I went to SeaWorld a few times as a child, and I don't remember Shamu being THIS amazing.  Either my memory isn't very good, or Shamu has stepped up his game.  He (she?) did a 360 degree flip!  I was seriously amazed!!!

 Eden really, REALLY liked when Shamu jumped up to hit the ball.

 

Eden LOVED it.  But she was NOT happy when Shamu was NOT jumping.  If he was just swimming or waving his tail or being fed fish, she would start yelling, "AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN" so loudly that people would turn around to look at us.  "You want Shamu to jump again?"  "YEAH!!!"  "Well we have to wait."  "AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!!!!!!"

 

She was crushed when the show was over, and we told her it was time to go home.

 

So, so far our Christmas season is off to a pretty great start.  We still don't have a Christmas tree in our living room, but we did put a pink one up in Eden's room on Monday night, and she was VERY excited about it.  She hugged it.

According to my Facebook newsfeed, I'm the last person in America who doesn't have a tree up yet, but it's what we're doing tonight! 

Christmas is in 21 days, and for the first time ever, instead of wanting it to be here as quick as possible, I want these next 21 days to go by verrryyy slowllyyyy so we can continue doing all of these fun Christmas things with Eden!

I thought last year was great, but with her at this age, THIS year is going to be amazing.