Growing Up on Christmas Eve

Since 2006, we've had a tradition of visiting Tracey and Andre's home on Christmas Eve for dinner and socializing. The only year we missed was 2008, when we traveled down to Florida to stay with my Dad for Christmas. Our friends Sheri and Adam have been another constant on Christmas Eve as well. Actually, since Sheri and Tracey go way back, the Christmas Eve tradition probably predates us, but I like to think it started in 2006.

2006: Buns in the Oven 

As fate would have it, on Christmas Eve 2006, Marilu, Tracey, and Sheri were all pregnant for the first time (with Lucas, Thierry, and Logan, respectively). We took the pictures below, not realizing at the time what kind of tradition THAT would turn into.

2007: New Arrivals 

In 2007, the boys made their debut appearance. 

These expressions are priceless. And no, I have no idea what they were looking at. Incidentally, the pajama shots lasted until this year, when they finally decided to hell with it, they were going to keep their regular clothes on. (As a casual writer, yes, it does pain me slightly that the last two sentences both ended in a preposition.)

2008: 1 Year Old 

If you recall, I said we weren't around in Ottawa for Christmas Eve that year. But through the magic of stealing pictures from a different event (New Year's Eve at Heidi's), I can kinda sorta keep the tradition going in 2008. Yeah, it's cheating a bit, but at least you get a good idea of their growth without missing a year. Just try to imagine them all sitting next to each other at the same time.

2009: 2 Years Old

The true tradition continues! This could also be called the "Thank God for Tracey" year since, as mentioned previously, we apparently couldn't be bothered to take any photos. The boys were 2 years old this year, and as you'll be able to tell, they were at that stage where they'd been photographed enough in their life that their patience for several photos on a couch was on the low end. I love the expressions below, particularly the fact that each of them has a "okay, I'm done with this" look at least once.

Fun fact: this was our first Christmas Eve at Tracey and Andre's new place in south Kanata, not too far from us. In 2006 and 2007, they lived out in the country in North Gower. It wasn't that far, but on dark winter nights, it felt about a hundred miles away so I'm glad they are now much closer.

2010: 3 Years Old

This Christmas Eve saw the addition of a new cast member: Etienne, Thierry's younger brother. The kids were a little more willing to pose for photos this time around, but actually getting all of them to stare at the camera was a near Herculean task. It probably didn't help that at least three of us were trying to take photos!

I have no idea what Lucas is up to in this photo.

2011: 4 Years Old

You may notice a different couch this year, but we're at the same house. Pictures were just moved from the family room to the living room. Or vice versa. As a part time real estate agent, I should probably remember which is which. Whatever the case, this has been the location for the last two years as well.

Two observations I just made while looking at these photos: one, Thierry and Etienne are wearing matching pajamas in 2010 and 2011. *cough*dorkyparents*cough* :) Second, Logan is wearing the same pajamas in 2011 that the Wonder Twins wore in 2010. I have nothing snarky to add. Just observin'.

2012: 5 Years Old

After going through the baby years, where the boys didn't know we were taking pictures, and then the toddler years, where they didn't want to sit still for a picture, we finally entered a new era: one in which they wanted to pose. And pose they did. (side note: good to see Thierry and Etienne broke the pajama curse)

I want to make it abundantly clear that Lucas is not doing what you think he is doing in this next picture. It just happens to be where his finger was resting at the time. Still, it does look damned funny.

2013: 6 Years Old

And that brings us to the present...or at least a couple of weeks ago. It may just be me, but I found the difference between the boys from 2012 and 2013 to be the most drastic change since 2006 and 2007. They just look so much older. Yeah, part of it is the fact that they aren't in pajamas, but our little first graders/future NHL stars just look so much more mature (physically, not mentally, as evidenced in the first picture). It's so hard to believe they are now six and not those little kids who could barely move around on their own a few short years ago.

2014: 7 Years Old

Rather than confuse the kids with where to look, I let Tracey take all the pictures this year (with her far superior camera), and then I just looted them all from her Flickr account. So without any further adieu, the 2015 Christmas Eve update of Lucas, Logan, Thierry, and Etienne.

The first two pictures are almost identical except Etienne has a better smile in the second one. However, I thought the other 3 kids looked better in the first one. So voila, you get both.

Can't take pictures without the kids getting a little wacky.

This was my favorite picture of the 3 older boys, but unfortunately, Etienne is distracted.

And one last crazy one.

I can't recall if I've ever posted other pictures from the Christmas Eve party, but here are a couple of others I liked from this year.

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2015: 8 Years Old

Here's the 2015 installment of "The Boys on Christmas Eve." I've combined the best of my photos and ones I stole took directly from Tracey's Flickr page. Next year, I may refrain from taking any since you can tell the kids aren't sure which way to look in most of the photos, with some of them looking at mine and some looking at Tracey's. That said, the photos still look good.

Might as well get the "serious" ones out of the way first since they didn't stay serious for long.

And then chaos ensued.

Since it was a green Christmas, Tracey was able to get an ultra-rare picture of the kids playing in the backyard. Don't expect to see too many repeats of this picture in the future. Unless we all win the lottery and move south.

2016: 9 Years Old

This year marks my slowest update to the Christmas Eve pictures as it's now January 30, and my mom has asked me to post them at least once. Good to know my ability to post things late remains consistent from year to year.

As referenced in last year's update, this time around I let Tracey take all of the pictures since there was some confusion as to which camera the kids were looking at last year. The pictures were so-so this year, but let me be the first to state that this was through no fault of Tracey's. The kids were just unwilling to sit still and pose long enough to get pictures equivalent to years past. That said, I suggested that next year we will not allow them to open any Christmas Eve gifts until such time that they pose for a few good photos. Bribery and/or blackmail is always a useful bargaining tool with children so we'll see how that works out about 11 months from now.

So without any further adieu, here are the highlights from 2016.

Pajama time! I see this year Logan and Thierry are matching. It's always something with those kids.

So that's that. I really hope everyone enjoyed watching this year-by-year transformation of Lucas, Logan, and Thierry (and Etienne, eventually). It took much longer than I though to write this post, when you factor in tracking down all the photos, picking the best ones, and then commenting on them, but I have to admit this is already one of my favorite blog entries. It's really a neat thing for me to see just how much they've changed. Mostly for the better, I suppose. :)

Before I wrap this up, I want to once again thank the fabulous Tracey. Not only did she provide the setting for all of these photos (and many thanks to Andre for that as well), but this would not have been possible if not for her pictures. On top of all of that, her Christmas Eve dinners have been damned tasty!

For what it's worth, I intend to update this post annually as long as we keep getting invited over there for Christmas Eve. Or until the point where our kids really do give us the finger and tell us to shove it. Whichever comes first.

Puzzled

Earlier tonight, I had every intention of posting a chronological look at Christmas Eve with Lucas and his friends Thierry and Logan. However, while preparing to do it, I realized I couldn't find any pictures from 2006, which was when the kids were still in the bellies (yes, we took a picture of the three moms), or from 2009 (I have no idea if I lost that year or if we just didn't take any, which doesn't sound like us). As a result, I've spent the last couple of hours scouring my computer, to no avail. Tomorrow, I'm going to check my online storage, and if that doesn't turn up anything, I may take a look at the desktop PCs downstairs. Maybe something disappeared when I transferred the photos. Who knows?

In the meantime, some Lucas news. His first ski lessons of the season were this afternoon. He and Marilu actually spent the majority of the day at Mt Pakenham, skiing their hearts away (and tiring themselves out). Tomorrow is back to school, and it probably couldn't come at a better time since he's been driving us crazy. It doesn't help that he was cooped up in the house for several days last week due to the insanely cold weather.

Here's a few random photos from July to tide you over until I resolve the Christmas Eve conundrum.

First Post of 2014!

Sorry about the post-Christmas disappearance. For the first few days after Christmas, my free time was spent with one of my gifts, Assassin's Creed III on the Playstation 3. However, this whole week has been devoted to preparing for my Corporate Finance final, which is on Saturday morning. I promise I'll have more photos up this weekend.

Quick hockey update: Lucas's first "tournament" was on Dec 28. I use the quotations since it was technically a Fun Day. They didn't keep score, and it's all for fun, but they did play three games so it was tournament-ish. We've been harping on Lucas to keep both hands on his stick and to be more aggressive in going to the puck, and I'm happy to say there was definite improvement. He even scored three goals in the first game (we only saw 2, but he swears on the 3rd), so that was a nice surprise. I think it's nothing but practices for the next couple of months, and then in March, he might have up to three separate tournaments (um, Fun Days). So that ought to be a busy month. Unfortunately, we didn't get much in the way of pictures. The arena was pretty busy, and our cameras aren't that great at getting long distance action shots so you'll likely have to be satisfied with news of the events for the time being.

So that's that for now. I'll do everything I can to get a new update up by Saturday night. In the meantime, Tracey just contacted me a little bit ago to let me know her pictures from Christmas Eve are up. If you want to see more of how all 3 of us spent that night, check it out here. You'll have to scroll down a little ways, but you'll know it when you see a dinner party. :)

And lest I forget, Happy New Years!

Christmas Day 2013 (and a little of the Eve)

Merry Christmas! It's now approaching mid-afternoon here in Ottawa. Marilu is in the kitchen, working on a beef tenderloin, Lucas is doing his best to open up every single toy or game he received, and I'm here to update you with the goings-on of the Family Deal.

Before we get to Christmas morning, let's take a look at a couple of scenes from last night. I should note that Tracey took WAY more pictures than I did so I'll just link to her Flickr page whenever she posts the rest of hers so you can get a better idea of the entire night.

Each Christmas Eve, there's a gift exchange for the kids. Here's Lucas getting one of his gifts. You can never go wrong with Lego or Star Wars. He also got some Rainbow Loom elastics. More on that later.

One of the coolest traditions that has sprung from the Christmas Eve visits is that we've been taking pictures of Lucas, Logan, and Thierry each year, starting when all 3 were still in their Mom's bellies. Below is this year's version. It occurs to me now that chronicling the pictures from each year would make for a good post. Look for that in the next week.

Now, on to the festivities. Lucas was nice enough to fall asleep almost immediately when we got home on Christmas Eve, and then he waited until almost 8 AM to wake me up. Before the paper carnage began, I got this picture of the present haul.

You can never go wrong with Lego. Marilu and I both really like building Lego sets so the hardest part is having the patience to wait for him to do it and not just grab it and do it on our own. :)

Mini sticks hockey set. One of three hockey-related items he received. You'll see the really big one toward the end of this post.

This is one of my personal favorites: a Hess truck from Dave and Judy. Each year, Hess has a different version of their truck carrying different vehicles. In past years, there have been race cars, jets, and helicopters. This year it was a tractor. The reason I really like these is that they are a throwback to the Tonka trucks I grew up with. We still have all the prior versions he's received and look forward to seeing new ones each year.

More Legos from his Godfather.

I was proud of just how happy he was with this microscope from Aunt Tanya (aka the Godmother). Here's hoping he keeps his interest in science.

Even more Legos! Let the building commence!

This was probably the present that got Lucas the most excited. Rainbow Loom is all the rage this year with kids his age. In a nutshell, you use the "loom," a plastic device, to create bracelets and necklaces out of colored elastics. The kids trade them at school or give them to their friends. I don't necessarily get it, but then again, I'm far removed from age 6. Along with the extra bags of colored elastics he received, Marilu estimated we now have 5400 elastics in our house. That's the potential for a mess on a nuclear level.

Although he's never played the videogame these figures are based on, Lucas really likes Halo.

Our future Hugh Hefner tries on his very first robe.

You can't get much more old school than Matchbox cars. Thanks go to Uncle Jared for these.

Here's the hockey net I mentioned earlier (sans net, which has since been installed). Santa may have misjudged the size of net required for Lucas's age since this is an NHL regulation size net at 4 feet high by 6 feet wide. Odds are, if Lucas stays interested in hockey, he'll still have this when he moves out. In the meantime, it'll double as a soccer net or baseball backstop (thanks to my dad for the ideas).

Finally, here's the aftermath of Christmas Morning 2013. Like I said on Facebook earlier, it pays to be an only child (and only grandchild on my side). Lucas got more stuff than some charities.

Hope the rest of your Christmas is very merry!