December 25, 2003
Christmas Day -- Premilinary
Just a short note about Christmas Day for the Heupel’s in Mystic…more will follow including more pictures in a new gallery album.
It was a very good Christmas for all of us, with a number of good books—Henry Wu’s latest, an excellent knitting book and a very good cook book— clothes and a few other items for Tammy and I, and books, boooks and more books for Johann. He loved it. He has in fact remarked a number of times that books are his favorite “toys”—man how I love hearing that! He got another Jan Brett book, a number of Suess books and a number of others. We will be going through them all over the next few days. I have a feeling he will soon be taking me up on an offer to read 100 books in a couple day period.
Of course he also recieved a number of toys and vinyl animals—he is thrilled with all of them. One thing, the more we play with the new Playmobil toys the more impressed we are. Their attention to detail and articulation in the animals is wonderful. I remember Playmobil toys from when I was a kid in Germany, and my recollection has always been that they were among my favorite toys. Looks like that will be the case for Johann as well.
The greatest treasure for us however was a quiet special holiday as a core family. Making new traditions from both our families and adding new twists as Johann let’s us know his own wishes. Like A tree with Popcorn strings and Candycanes, never a real tradition—maybe done once or twice but not a tradition—in either of our families, and not something we have ever done while we have been married. A little old and a little new all the more special as it is our own special mix of our family traditions.