December, 2005
This year, we decorated our tree "family style", with a variety of ornaments and garland that did not necessarily match each other. Elisa helped decorate the tree, and was especially excited by a strand of Dora-the-Explorer yellow stars from Sandra.
We visited Somerset Mall to do some Christmas shopping with Nonno, Zia Teresa, and cousins Luca and Julian. Elisa's favorite part of the mall was running around playing "chase-me" in the center court. The shiny black boots make the outfit...
This is Elisa's first encounter with Santa Claus, in a department store. She was not too keen on the idea of getting close to this strange looking fellow, but she was definitely curious. After a brief visit, she made a bee-line to the Chanel department directly behind Santa. "That's my girl!" said Mom.
December 13th. First Anniversary of "Gotcha Day".
All day long we looked at our watches and said "right about now we were doing this...". Zia Linda, Zio John, Zia Teresa, Zio Luigi, cousins Mario, Luca and Julian, and Nonno got her a big bundle of balloons.
Elisa marched around the house proudly with the balloons. She immediately associated balloons with a special day.
To celebrate Gotcha Day, we went out to eat to an Italian restaurant.
Elisa blew out a candle on her special day...
December 14th, the Children's Rehab Center put on a Christmas Party for staff and their families. Elisa got to see her friends from the pre-school. Mrs. Charlie led the children in some music and movement while we waited for Santa to arrive.
This is Elisa's second encounter with Santa. This time, she went right up on his lap! Santa gave her a Christmas present.
Elisa's Christmas present from Santa was a drum and a bag of candy. Elisa had been making her own drums at home out of cookie tin tops and Tupperware containers. Now she has a real drum that lights up when you strike it. Add a mouth full of candy, and that's Elisa heaven.
Later that night, Elisa reached another big milestone. She put herself on her own little potty and put it to its intended use, exclaiming "big girl!".
On the 18th, Elisa got dressed up in her plaid skirt and tam to go to Rita's house to see the puppies.
Christmas.
Since we had to catch a very early flight on Christmas morning we moved our at-home Christmas up one day. On Christmas "eve-eve", we left some crackers and milk for Santa by the fireplace. Before she went to bed, Elisa ate all but one of the crackers, but was persuaded to leave one last cracker for Santa. The next morning, the cracker and milk was gone. Santa had gotten the message to come during the night before the night before Christmas!
Santa left presents under the tree. The presents were wrapped in Dora the Explorer paper!
On Christmas Eve, we went to a family party at Zio Luigi and Zia Teresa's house.
Hanging out with Zio John.
Elisa spent the afternoon playing with her cousins.
Mario shows Elisa how to play air hockey.
On Christmas morning, we caught an 8am flight (which was slightly delayed, as usual). But we still got to Grammy and Papa's house bright and early. There, we had another family party with lots more aunts and uncles and cousins.
Maggie has American Girl dolls, and even has an outfit that matches the doll's outfit.
Max goes over the the dark side. Very scary!
Papa puts his woodworking skills to good use carving the turkey. Martha Steward look out...
Christmas dinner at Grammy and Papa's.
The four youngest cousins.
On the day after Christmas, Lorelei and Tim threw a party.
Grampa received a hand-carved wooden model of the P2V airplane that he flew in the early 1960's.
The next day, Nana got up early and stood in line to get a table for us at the Walnut Room of Marshall Fields in downtown Chicago. She got a table right next to the 30-foot high Christmas tree.
Elisa was a perfect little lady.
