Happy Boxing Day!

I’m starting the day with an espresso — my second of the morning — from my brand new Nespresso espresso maker, which I love and highly recommend. We had a lovely Christmas in Brooklyn yesterday, the first that Jackson had any sort of understanding what was happening. Presents! Food! More presents! And the first Christmas it was just the three of us (though we did FaceTime with my family and look forward to seeing them in a couple days).

Seeing Jackson’s face light up when he saw the presents under the tree was a Christmas highlight (See also: new espresso maker). We spent the morning slowly opening presents — very slowly. Jackson enjoyed playing with each new toy 10-20 minutes before moving on to the next, which was fine, because what else are you gonna do? By the time we got to the final gift, he was hungry and tired, and fell right to sleep as soon as we finished a big breakfast of biscuits and gravy and scrambled eggs (a Christmas tradition in my family).

Later in the day we went to our friends’, Mary and Steve, for Christmas dinner. Lucky for us, Mary is a fantastic cook and they happen to live only four doors down, making trips home for things like toddler utensils and a lollipops super easy. (Lollipops are a new necessity since Jackson got an inhaler on Monday afternoon after an emergency trip to the doctor and now gets a lollipop when he uses “puff puff”).

As I mentioned in yesterday’s open thread, one of the gifts Jackson received was something from my late Grandpa Jack. It was a little mouse-shaped piggy bank that he won playing Bingo (probably at the nursing home where he lived in his final couple months) and wanted Jackson to have. After his death in September, I started finding pennies all the time. I found the first one — well, my mother found it, actually — on my seat in the car right after his funeral, and from then, I started spotting them, sometimes in piles of four or five or six, in random places like my kitchen counter, my dresser top, and outside our front door. Sometimes I’d just be thinking of him and I’d look down and there was a penny. Once, one literally fell right into my lap as I thinking of a memory of him. Anyway, I hadn’t seen a penny in a few weeks — or at least, not one I felt was “from him” — and I wondered if I would see one on Christmas, which was Grandpa’s favorite holiday. And then there was that little bank for Jackson — with pennies inside, of course — and it was such a sweet gift to receive.

And that’s the kind of stuff I love about Christmas. New espresso makers are pretty good, too. And so is this:

Hope you all are enjoying some down time, good company, or at the very least, great coffee and delicious leftovers. Tomorrow, we spend some time with my FIL and then on Saturday, it’s off to see my parents and sister. Happy final days of 2013, everyone!