Bitter disappointment -- there was absolutely no crying on Santa's lap this year. It's such a shame, too, because a crying/wailing child on Santa's lap makes for the best photos ever. I suppose I should have expected as much. After all, my brother said last year that we'd be lucky if we got one more crying/wailing one out of her. ('You could have a whole series!') I suppose two out of three ain't bad, though.
This year's picture turned out to be quite pretty, really. Emilia is dressed in a beautiful bright red corduroy dress, white tights, and black shoes. Her curly hair is pulled off of her pretty little face, and she looks like a little beauty. (However, I simply must stop doing this with her hair, because it makes her look like a big girl -- and not like my little two-and-a-half-year-old baby. Unacceptable, I say.) And though she has a teeny-tiny smile on her face for the picture, she is not sitting on Santa's lap. In fact, I could have comfortably sat between the two of them. While she sat, she had her hand on the edge of the sleigh trying to pull herself as far away from the man as she could get. It's a very nice picture, but clearly nothing like the others.
After the picture was taken, Santa asked Emilia what she wanted for Christmas. She looked at him and then quietly whispered, 'presents!'
Anyway, we've been trying to get in the spirit of Christmas around here. We got our tree on Saturday, put all of our decorations out, and hung the stockings by the chimney with care. Emilia has been running around the house with her Rudolph, and pretending that all her animals are the cast of characters from the old cartoon Frosty the Snowman. We've made Christmas cookies (not of a very tasty sort, though) and cupcakes. And we've been playing Christmas music throughout all of our waking hours -- well, except during naptime, anyway.
I promised her a few weeks ago that we would go to Target and get some of their really cute Nick & Nora red flannel Christmas pajamas, which we've yet to do. She had the cutest ones last year -- one pair with dogs and another with cats. But I'm kind of hoping that she forgets about them. Because as cute as they are, it is too far to drive and I'm so sick and tired of being in the car. (It's a shame, too, because they are only something like $12.) All is not lost, though, because I made her a pair of Olivia pajamas right before Thanksgiving -- and she loves them. We've been on an every other night basis with them, on account of the fact that they must be washed in between wearing. ('Are my Leevia's clean, mama?') And to be perfectly honest, I'm quite impressed with them. I set sleeves, made a collar, fashioned four buttonholes, and whipped up a pocket. Well, la-ti-da, if I do say so myself.
Emilia used to be obsessed with Olivia (which was when I first found the fabric). There was a time when we were reading Olivia Forms a Band and Olivia Saves the Circus three or four times a day -- day in, day out. She used to call Olivia 'Lee-la', but now she manages 'Leevia'. And it used to make us laugh when she would run around the house saying, in the manner of Olivia's mother, 'Wipe that glop off your face young lady, and get in the car now!' The Olivia books are fabulous.
But before that happens, we've got some more Christmasing to do, which includes mass tonight. It is, after all, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And oddly enough, we met our little Emilia exactly three years ago today.
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