AwesomeCloud's first awesome Christmas

Christmas eve was spent at Uncle and Auntie's house with AwesomeCloud's four cousins. The Cloud chowed down happily on lasagna and meatballs and played with his new musical snail with his cousins. Gift opening was very loud and overwhelming. AwesomeCloud enjoyed seeing the first two presents he got, but then he distracted himself with a rubber ball he'd found under a table. Then he wanted to walk circles in the kitchen with only me for company.

In hindsight, his tolerance for chaos and noise is reasonably good. Sure, he got overwhelmed, but I have a feeling he'll learn to like it as he gets older.

Christmas morning, we woke up to a living room full of presents, but AwesomeCloud wanted breakfast. So did his parents. So we made a delicious but not too decadent egg breakfast, and we didn't even glance at the gifts until we were all fed and happy.

AwesomeCloud hasn't yet learned to rip wrapping paper, but he was interested to see what would come out of each package. He got matchbox cars, plastic musical toys, and cat food! No wait. The cat food was for the cats. But AwesomeCloud enjoyed playing with the little cans.

Then we went to my aunt's house, AwesomeCloud's great-aunt. There was more exchanging of gifts, and now we are well stocked with baby clothes and baby toys. He met his other cousins for the very first time! They got along well. There was homemade fettuccine and eggplant parmigiana - you know, traditional Christmas dinner fare. :) There were also pies, cookies, and a huge cheesecake for dessert, but we left a little early so we just had a few cookies thrown into baggies to take home. Aw. I am very much a dessert person, and I am not particularly saving all those cookies as leftovers. I already ate half of them.

The photos are still in the camera, and I am too lazy to go get them out and post them, but I heard that several of them came out well.

Tomorrow we're having a couple of friends and maybe AwesomeCloud's Yeye and Nainai over for board games. (No, we're not calling them Yeye and Nainai. They are Grandma and Grandpa. But they now have T-shirts with the Chinese words on them.)

Riley's first Christmas with us was unremarkable. She's still confined to the basement. It's chilly down there, so I opened the door to let some heat waft in, and she and Melody had a hissing standoff. Get used to each other, girls. You're going to be best friends... or else.

AwesomeCloud has seen Riley a couple of times but not interacted with her in any meaningful way. I'm sure that'll change once Riley moves upstairs with us.