Baby Christmas! Juliette at 4 months

Christmas-ing with a baby did NOT disappoint. 

I've previously stated that every baby hat should be required to include ears, because little babies who look like bears or cats are the unequivocal best, but I may need to amend that statement to allow for baby-sized Santa hats, which clearly are also the best.

Juliette is too little to "get" Christmas, obviously, but she still had a lot of fun with her new presents. The best one was actually a hand me down we've had for quite some time but she was too little to use until now - a jumpy exersaucer we brought out Christmas morning as somewhat of a coincidence. But holy cow we could not have given her a better present - she is IN LOVE with this thing. She already wants to be standing at all times, and this gives her the autonomy to do so and ALSO jump around, and turn in any direction she pleases - she is in heaven.

She's in a really fantastic phase right now where she is learning things so quickly you can actually SEE her figure them out. It's so fun. Her current favorite thing to do is blow raspberries - my parents got her started on it when they were down for Thanksgiving, and she has been devotedly practicing ever since. It's often the first thing she does upon waking up (after a big good morning smile) and I've heard her practicing them alone in the dark, in her crib. All that practice is paying off:

She's currently EBF, but we got the OK from the pediatrician to start her on solids if we want. I'll probably wait until ~5 months since she seems fine with the current set up, but she has started grabbing for anything we're putting in our mouths:

Caviar and beer... girlfriend has good taste ;-)

Of course, she wants to put EVERYTHING in her mouth, so I'm not sure how much credence we can give to her apparent interest in human food.

She is a nearly universally happy, cheerful baby (especially now that she SLEEPS! I know it's not for everyone but holy crap I want to marry Dr. Ferber.. more on that in another post, hopefully) - she's impressively laid back and easygoing. She doesn't mind being held by complete strangers, she rolls with the punches when her routine is changed, and overall she is just a really pleasant little person.

Babies: excellent for Christmasing

I've read and heard from a lot of folks that they're having trouble getting into the holiday spirit this year. This is VERY UNDERSTANDABLE because everything is basically a giant raging dumpster fire right now, so I can see how getting all festive and cheery is not quite in the cards. 

However, the combination of having a cute baby and a Real House to decorate for the first time has had the opposite effect on me, and I am all DECORATE ALL THE THINGS! TWINKLE LIGHTS EVERYWHERE! FESTIVE HATS ON CATS, STAT!

 The cats are clearly super into it, as usual.

One of the most exciting things about having a real grownup house is going Full Suburban and decorating the exterior for holidays. Back in October, we wrapped that ubiquitous gauzy spiderweb stuff on our trees and bushes for Halloween, and put a skeleton out under a gravestone that flashed "RIP" in the dark. And now that it's Christmas, we have lights!

Granted, these are not a lot of lights. We have a few years before we make it to Griswold territory, I think. Year One is for dipping our feet into the Christmas light waters. 

Indoors I've gone far more overboard. I've always enjoyed decorating my apartment or condo in previous years, but this year I had way more real estate to work with. First order of business: get a full sized tree!  

This is also my first foray into the world of fake trees, but so far I'm a fan. For one thing, the cats don't constantly eat it and puke it up, which in and of itself is enough reason to go fake for the rest of eternity. 

A wee strand of ornaments on our living room lamp. Above it is one of my favorite prints in the house: a painting we got while on our honeymoon in Italy, directly from the artist, who had set up shop at the top of the town of San Gimignano and was painting the surrounding landscapes out in the open air, with his dog by his side. 

And look! We now have a very legit mantle! We technically had one in our condo, but the TV was mounted just a few inches above it, so it was not good for decorating. Not the case here. ALL THE GARLANDS AND TWINKLY LIGHTS!! 

I just realized I didn't even take a picture of my dining room tablescape (ha. "tablescape." It's a grouping of candles. But a FESTIVE grouping of candles!) or the piano, which has a small army of nutcrackers keeping watch. You can just barely get a glimpse of the one full sized guy and one of the mini ones behind us here. (Also: say hi to my sister and brother in law!)

But of course, the MOST FUN thing to decorate is obviously the cute baby I have at my disposal. 

My mother in law apparently feels the same way, seeing as I received the following picture while at work last week (and subsequently straight up died in the middle of a meeting. This picture still cracks me up every time I look at it. I'm not sure why! Chris doesn't find it as hilarious as I do... I think it's her extremely put-upon expression):

To cap off the New Parent Cliché Bucket List, we took Juliette to visit Santa last weekend. I regret nothing.

 I think she looks like Grumpy Cat in this one. I love it one million.

(This was not at a mall, incidentally, since I become nearly instantly homicidal when inside a mall at this time of year. We have one of those sort of fake-city-center type outdoor shopping centers near us, and a) it's awesome and b) they have "selfies with Santa," where Santa is just sort of hanging out in front of a backdrop, and you come by at your leisure and take your own photos with your own gear. It's FANTASTIC - no lines, no build up, no pressure.

Although Juliette did take the opportunity to spit up all over her dress [and me] literally seconds before I passed her off to Santa. Better than AFTER Santa was holding her, at least!)

We did also get one of her smiling, because she really is a very happy baby:

To sum up: if you require some holiday cheer, I recommend coming to spend some time with me.