'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Last year I started a Christmas tradition of not putting out any wrapped gifts (even for the adults) or filling the stockings until the night before, so we were very busy after Jack went to bed on Christmas Eve. It's all part of the magic. :) A couple weeks before, I put out my little table top tree with toddler-friendly ornaments just like last year. I think Jack would've been fine (and even thrilled) with a full-sized tree though. Something to look forward to for next year!! 

Here's a preview of what our Christmas morning looked like:

It was easy to hide the gifts (some of which we brought back from NY when we went for Thanksgiving, and these aren't all for Jack!), but I'm going to have to get sneaky as he gets older! 

I was also extremely lucky to get a hand-me-down train table and Thomas train set from a woman at work. Some friends kept the table for us at their house (I had the box of trains and tracks under a blanket in the basement!) and dropped it off on Christmas Eve. Luckily Jack had no idea what it was, so we were in the clear! This thing is a lot bigger than I realized and I had to make some room for it in Jack's play area in the basement. I knew it would be hard to tear him away from the trains once he saw them and I didn't want it to distract from the other gifts, so I was happy with it being downstairs and out of sight.

We didn't set it up very eloquently, but I knew Jack would just take it apart anyway. I mostly wanted the trains themselves to be on display. There are 2 boxes of trains and tracks under the table and I think we'll have plenty of chances to build it however we want! By the way, is it just me or did the majority of all 2 year olds get a train table for either their birthday or Christmas? For a kid who loves trains, it's a pretty awesome gift! :)

More on Christmas Day and Jack's reaction to his gifts in a separate post. I want to record these moments without making my posts too lengthy. ;)