Christmas Part Deux

(Warning: This post contains video after video of Joseph opening presents. The alternative was a discussion of the large quantity of corn I made for Christmas Eve dinner. I think I chose the better part.)

Even though December 25th is technically the "real" Christmas, Joseph's second Christmas of 2008 was his shortest.

To start, on December 24th, we drove up to Los Angeles to spend Christmas Eve with the Toddster's entire family.

Joseph was fired up to see his cousins, and even got to stay up way past his bedtime.


(N.B. for posterity's sake. At this time, Nana and Grandpa are still renting a house. Although Nana frequently wears orange, her taste in curtains would never descend to the level of the drapes featured in the background of this photo).

We've mentioned in other posts that Joseph's favorite thing to say is "Tzat?" (translated, "What's that?") On Christmas Eve (Joseph's second, but the real one to everyone else) his Larson cousins got him a book designed for playing "tzat?"

Despite this video being filmed way past his bedtime, you'll notice that Joseph took to it right away, and only says one thing (repeatedly through the whole video):

Joseph's cousins spent Christmas morning at their own respective homes, and Christmas with Nana and Grandpa was much quieter than Christmas Eve.

This picture captures Joseph's Second Christmas pretty well. This is Joseph showing his little Elmo to his big Elmo while wearing his Elmo slippers:


During December, Joseph developed a severe case of Elmo-mania. We're not sure how he learned about Elmo, but whenever we see Elmo, he gets really excited. We showed him the big Elmo in the store a couple of times and his eyes lit up and he giggled with joy each time.

When his Nana heard about that, she did what any Nana would do and ordered an Elmo online.

Here's Joseph first discovering Elmo on Christmas morning (love at first sight):

Joseph dancing with elmo:

Joseph helping elmo (and getting distracted by a nearby box of Jo-Jo's)

Lest you think all he got for Christmas was Elmo, here's Joseph figuring out that he got cars and that he can't get the package open:

Speaking of cars, Christmas at Nana and Grandpa's was put on on hold because Joseph needed to hop into a car so that he could make Christmas #3. But that is a story for our next post.

(The next post involves unexpected twists and danger, so make sure to check back soon for that one.)