At 17 months of age, Camden is still too young to appreciate what Christmas is all about. This year we decided to keep the gifts as educational as possible and to a minimum as this child of ours has too many toys than he knows what to do with. I find he can't even concentrate on one toy long enough to enjoy it because he has too many to distract him.
5:30 am and our little monster was up and about hovering around the Christmas gifts. His fingers were wandering and he was trying to check what was inside the colourful packages. We wanted to wait until 7:00 am for him to open the gifts as my mother and grandmother wanted to be there to witness the excitement.
Roll on 7:00 am and we let Camden start opening his gifts. He jumped into the biggest present and started pulling and smacking at the wrapping paper like a crazy person...that is our boy!
It wasn't long before he jumped out of the sandpit shell my mom bought him to go and investigate the other gifts and see what more he could destroy.
The look of pure excitement on this little guys face when he saw what was in the next gift was priceless! My mother had also bought him a bucket and spade set to play in the sandpit she had bought him. Camden has seen kids playing with these sets in the sand every time we go to the beach and I have felt terrible for him as you can just see how badly he wants to play with the kids buckets and spades but I knew he was getting one for Christmas so I didn't want to spoil that and get him one before then,
He was so happy, he started clapping his hands. This moment was too precious for all of us.
Camden has a really short attention span at this age and after he got to open his cart with bucket and spade he was off and not interested in the other gifts for some time. You have to leave him to let him do what he wants to do, he doesn't like to be fussed with or told what to do, so we left him be.
Shortly after he got bored of that gift and ventured over to see what was next. He got a magnetic fishing rod from my gran that he can pick up little fish with as well as colouring in books, crayons, apron, paint brushes, paint,a Noddy DVD set, an inflatable pool tube, sippy cup and a nursery rhyme book with CD.
We left our gifts for last, we bought him clothing which for him isn't exciting in the least and a plastic motorbike. We left this for last because we knew if he opened this first that would be the end of unwrapping gifts. Every Birthday party that Camden has been invited to he has been infatuated with these plastic motorbikes and never wants to get off or give the other children a turn.
Just like we thought, the bike wasn't even out of the black bag we had wrapped it in and he was trying to climb on it.
He was glued to the bike for the rest of the morning and we had to take it with when we left the house to go and celebrate Christmas by having Christmas Lunch with the family at my Uncle and Aunts house.
Camden got a blow up car for the pool from my Cousin Jade and his girlfriend Megan and he got an awesome tent from my uncle and Aunt.
All in all Christmas was good, way quieter than the years before and my grandfather and great grandfather sure were missed.
It was almost like a family tradition for my grandfather to set something alight on Christmas day, either the table cloth, serviette or himself and this year my mother took over when she set the cloth that we had put over the food to keep the flies away alight, that was funny and we all had a good laugh...once the flames were out of course. I am sure my grandfather had a good chuckle while watching over us.
We hope you all had a good Christmas with family and friends.
