Liam's first Christmas in the U.S.

We had a great Christmas here in Davis and were joined by Grandparents Tim and Sally and Uncle Bri.  Our "Charlie Brown" Chrismtas tree was loaded up with wonderful ornaments, including some Rajasthani dolls and elephants brought back from India, a Kenyan Santa from the Quirks, a cute raccoon from the Warings, and a wooden snowflake from Aunt Marsha.  Here's a shot of Brian and Liam reading next to the tree:

Liam pretty-much, kind-of, sort-of got the whole Christmas story thing.  He semi-dictated a letter to Santa, thanking him for being nice to the reindeer, but when it came time to leave out snacks for them, he decided he was Rudolph and ate up the carrots and apples we were urging him to leave for his night-time visitors.  Presents were fun and included a school backpack (very grown up), some beautiful homemade blocks from Topher and Marie, some instruments, and some tubby toys (the biggest hit).  He unwrapped most of them on his own, but mostly enjoyed cutting the wrapping paper with his scissors, and was less inclined to actually find out what was inside each box.

We enjoyed a nice Christmas dinner with our upstairs neighbors, Deepa and Anand:

Some good walks (I think my mom is the crocodile from Peter Pan in this photo and Liam is pretending to be a ferocious Captain Hook):

Liam's favorite activity, reading time (my dad probably read this book to Liam about eight times):

And some good family time:

We gratefully received letters, gifts and photos from so many of you and wished, of course, that we could see you all, but we thought of you and hope you, too, had a good Christmas.