Christmas night at Pops & K's

After the dust settled at our house Christmas Day — and a nap for Charlie — we packed up everyone to head down to Libertyville for the remainder of the Holland Christmas celebration. After hosting the last two years, and especially in light of our new dietary restrictions, it was a nice change of pace to do the big meal and open gifts at Pops & K's house. Plus, our house was an absolute disaster (owing largely to the train table and McDonald's set and all the attendant parts strewn about the living room) and we were expending all our non-parenting energy toward getting ready to drive to Fulton the next day.

As I recall (nearly two weeks later), the actual celebration went pretty well, especially in terms of behavior from Jack and Max. Writing that makes me sound like kind of a grumpy dad, but with so much excitement and gratification jammed into so many consecutive days, it's hard not to keep such things close to top of mind. Even though family members very rarely pass judgement during a meltdown (visibly, at least), it seems there's lots of pressure on us as parents to provide magical holiday memories, or at least several hours of feeling happy to be together with everyone. It really is a wonderful time for me, personally, to tangibly experience the benefits of close family bonds ... but it's also one of the peak stress times for my role as a parent.

But enough about me. How about the pictures?

We'll file this one under "When did he get so big?" From Pops and K's

Checking out Kim's turtle-shaped thumb piano. From Pops and K's

Max's facial expressions are the best. From Pops and K's

Fire Chief Doodle. From Pops and K's

Charlie ate and slept through most of the presents. From Pops and K's

Pops and his brick. The black smudge is the remnant of a grill wheel he melted. From Pops and K's

After dinner, back in the swing of things. From Pops and K's

Taking hats off is fun! From Pops and K's

Jack is very fond of his snap circuit set — and proud of his handiwork. From Pops and K's

There's a bow on my head! From Pops and K's

These two have an awful lot in common. From Pops and K's

Upside-down Doodle! From Pops and K's

That was the end of Christmas week festivities with the Hollands. We left for Fulton the next morning, and Aunt Kim flew back to San Francisco that afternoon. Matt had to work (though he was off duty Dec. 25 itself, a nice surprise since the Bears were playing that night) and eventually life gets back to normal. But it was the cap to a nice few days of family fun, especially the one-on-one time Kim had with both Max (two days of playing games and iPad stuff and eating food at Pops & K's) and Jack (a movie and a sleepover) and also to see Charlie show the first signs of coming out of his shell, which he continued quite nicely during our week in Fulton. That's our next stop on the blog tour, whenever I get around to slogging through the 300-some photos and handful of videos. Until then...