I was awake really early on Christmas morning (4am) feeding Lincoln and then I couldn't get back to sleep because I was so excited for Max. He really got into Christmas this year and understood what it was all about, so I was really, really, really looking forward to him waking up and seeing all the presents under the tree and in the stockings.
After Lincoln went back to sleep I climbed into bed with Max and tried to gently wake him up. He was sound asleep and I kept saying things to him like 'It's Christmas!' 'I think I just saw Santa!' 'There's a reindeer on the roof!', but he stayed sound asleep... Eventually I fell asleep and then woke up around 7am when Max *finally* woke up.
As soon as I realised he was awake I asked him if he knew what day it was. He looked sleepy and confused so I asked him if he thought that anyone special had visited us in the night. That clicked for him and he got sooooo excited. He yelled out 'It's Christmen Day!!' and jumped out of bed to go and see if Santa had been!
This was his 'crazy excited' face once he saw all the presents!
We got straight into the present opening and we started off with the Santa presents in his stocking (handmade by my very clever Mum). Max had so much fun opening his presents and loved every single one of them!
While we waited for Sean's brother to arrive we checked out the plate of treats we'd left out for Santa and his reindeer. He laughed and laughed when he saw that Santa had eaten the cookie and drank the milk, he thought it was so funny! I showed him the teeth marks in the carrot from the reindeer and all of a sudden he got serious and asked me where did the reindeer do their poo. Turns out he was worried that they had pooped on the roof. Too cute!!
The rest of the morning was spent opening more presents, playing with new toys, swimming, snuggling (with Lincoln) and eating Christmas lunch.
The next morning when we were back in Brisbane I came out of my bedroom about 5am to change Lincoln and found Max standing next to the Christmas tree crying. I hugged him and asked what was wrong and he said that the Elves hadn't left him a special treat (in the lead-up to Christmas the Elves had been leaving Max a candy cane on the tree each morning). I hugged him tighter and told him that Christmas was finished and that Santa and the elves would be back next year. The poor little thing cried even harder :(. I took him back to bed and thankfully he was much happier when he woke up later on. He did tell me though that he wanted it 'to go very quickly to be Christmen again'. So sweet!
Funny side note about the candy canes - after the third day of the elves leaving Max a candy cane I noticed that he was asking me to unwrap them, but then wasn't eating them. I asked him if he was happy that the elves were giving him candy canes and he said 'oh yes!'. Then I asked him if he liked to eat candy canes and he said 'ummm no, they taste like toothpaste'. I love that he was excited to get them even though he didn't like to eat them!
Because we had a rather traumatic end to our Christmas day I spent a lot of time on boxing day talking to Max about all the fun things that had happened at Christmas in the hopes that he would only remember the good stuff. I took this little video that evening and it makes me think that he still did have a good day :)
So although it wasn't the best Christmas I've ever had, I think Max thought it was a very special day and that's what it's all about :).
I hope you all had a really great Christmas with your loved ones too!!
