A Holiday Style Guide

I'm sick of playing catch up on this dang blog so I was tempted to ignore the fact that we just had some holidays but since its Baby's First, I guess I'll mention it. We just had Christmas!

Benji still believes in Santa (who doesn't) and was so caught up in the Holiday spirit, he dressed the part 50 times.

We had Santa onesies,

...Christmas jammies,

...a jolly Santa suit (his head was too big for the hat),

...a Christmas sweater (darn button crotches),

...and a classy Christmas tuxedo (complete with wing tips).

Benji even dressed up to pay homage to his 2 favorite Christmas movies. This get-up was a salute to Cousin Eddie (redneck camo) and Ralphie (Red Ryder). The camo works so well, you have to look twice to find the Banjo.

If you were wondering how a tux fits into the 'Holiday Wear' category, chalk it up to the weirdo in the family. Since Benji outgrew his first tuxedo (gifted from his Rodfather), Patrick kindly stole my baby from Christmas Eve, stripped him of his cozy sweater pants and replaced his garb with a new and improved tuxedo. At the rate we're going, Benji should have any ring bearer engagements, prom, and his wedding covered by his Sugar Uncle.

#midnightmass #dresstoimpress #tuxedossupplyforlife #andwithyourspirit

Oh Christmas. The season flew by in a haze of frosting, christmas lights and cheer. I probably ate 5 pounds of frosted sugar cookies (i made chocolate sugar cookies which were fantastic~ try them here - I used buttercream of course), and mini pop tarts on a stick which were delicious - google it, and cheese/creamcheese/Velveeta/socreamyitsnothealthy dips and spreads, and homemade egg nog and rice pudding from the Puerto Ricans (thanks Maria), and tequila shots to celebrate my Aunt's Mexican roots, and 42 clementines, and hot wine wassail (trickery in a cup), and monkey bread, egg bakes, turkey, meatballs, rumaki (love those little bacon wrapped buggers), jalapeno poppers, caramels, homemade pita chips, and some celery (just to cleanse my pallet). Someone should have reminded me of the starving children in Africa. Gluttony at its finest. The good news is, Benji can tolerate all of the items listed above so he is on his way to participating in some nice and healthy Holiday binges.

Benji's favorite part of Christmas (besides the wardrobe and calories) was the Christmas lights. If you've ever seen the movie Up, it was like Dug and squirrels. I'm trying to think about how I can incorporate a live Christmas tree into casual suburban decor 365 days a year. His eyes get wide, and he glazes over.

It's the simple things. Next year it will be shreds of wrapping paper and the year after that boxes. Thank God for grandparents (and aunts and uncles) because these parents told Santa to skimp this year since the lights, the food and the cheer were enough for our little Banjo. Of course, he was on the nice list though, dressed in his Holiday finest.

Naughty or Nice? Is there any question?

*No eyes were shot out in the making of this blog post.