Holiday photo montage

We started, of course, by decorating the house. Aliza liked the candles that we put in the windows and quickly decided that they were her toys:

Then came the tree:

Linus decided to hang out underneath it while we decorated:

And even Aliza got into decorating:

Although she took a break to read a bit:

We had our annual cookie exchange. Aliza woke up just in time to taste the gingerbread cookies her Mem-Mem baked.

And we went to the first of many family parties the week before Christmas. We discovered that despite our best efforts, Aliza was, in fact, afraid of Santa. She refused to sit on his lap, but we did get a quick family picture. And she sure did have fun playing with some of her younger cousins....and by playing I mean rolling around on the floor:

Christmas morning and we learned that Aliza definitely understood the idea of opening presents:

We paused to play....and snuggle:

Before heading over to Nonna and Grospapa's house where we got to eat yummy lasagna and open more presents. Aliza got an awesome kitchen set, complete with microwave, refrigerator, stove, baskets and lots of food. It was so big though that we have to wait to bring it home until we take the tree down and make some space for it.

Then we headed to Mem-mem and Pop-pop's house where we got to open more presents and eat more yummy food! Her tea set and table quickly became a crowd favorite.

It wasn't until a couple of days after Christmas that Aliza finally got around to opening a very special present from her Daddy. A special blue box containing her first Tiffany's ornament:

All in all, it was a rather very Merry Christmas!