Some gifts require explanation. Their first Christmas together, Daddy got Mommy a large container of coins (mind you, with a necklace box buried in the coins). Mommy was very happy because she is a little OCD about sorting things.

This Christmas, Grandpa Don gave Mommy 4 jars and a small box tightly packed with dimes. The dimes came with a piggy bank. You see, 17 years ago, great-grandma Majorie gave Grandpa Don the piggy bank to collect spare change. Shortly thereafter, Grandpa Don began charging Daddy and Tia Antje a dime for every time they left a light on after leaving a room. Those dimes went into the piggy bank.

Mommy and Daddy have decided to name the ~$420 worth of dimes the “energy efficiency fund”. Their first purchase with it will be some thermal curtains for the drafty apartment bedroom windows. They plan on adding to it by charging you a quarter (inflation) for leaving lights on and other energy wastes, and using the money collected to someday purchase a tankless water heater, solar panels, etc.

To you, Chirstmas Day wasn’t much different than any other day: eat, sleep, play, cry, digest. To the rest of us, here are some Brewer traditions you observed:

Christmas breakfast, for the last couple years, has consisted of Brewer Chirstmas bread (a sweet milk-based dough wrapped around almond paste, almonds, spices, candied fruit, and marchino cherries), Scottish eggs (hard boiled eggs wrapped in breakfast sausage and breaded), and mimosas. With Tia Antje as our private barista, lattas and mochas were also on the menu.

Daddy’s great aunt knitted red, green, and white stockings for each member of the Lorimer family up to Antje. You and Mommy don’t have stockings of your own yet so Mommy borrowed Betty’s (i.e. great-grandma Lorimer’s) and you borrowed Wayne’s (i.e. great-grandpa Lorimer’s). Tradiationally, these stockings contain mini oranges, chocolate coins and candy canes…plus small, quirky gifts that Grandma Lois (and other family members) find. We go around the room, with each person taking out a gift at a time until he or she reaches the oranges.

Gift opening happens in two stages: in the morning of just Brewer-Brewer exchanges and in the afternoon, when Grandpa Tom, Grandma Carol and Uncle Caleb arrive for Christmas dinner. Like the stockings, we take turns opening them. Someone, this year Grandpa Don, plays elf, handing out the presents. The presents are wrapped with paper to match Grandma Lois’ decorating theme–this year multi-colored nutcrackers–with a tag that includes a clue about what the present it. You have to guess before you can open the present.

Christmas dinner was beef roast, Stilton (a stinky, strong blue cheese favored by the Brewers—except Mommy) sauce, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, creamed spinach (Mommy’s favorite), salad, sparkling apple cider, and red wine. Before dinner are shrimp dip (Daddy’s favorite–lots of garlic), crackers, cheese, and more cheese. Dessert includes shortbread cookies, tarts, and port.

Christmas afternoon concludes with Grandpa Tom napping by the fire, games/movies and general, hanging out. A fire is kept going in the living room, to which we periodically add wrapping paper/wood/boxes and which you loved watching.

When Daddy and Mommy go home to Seattle for the holidays, there are tongue-in-cheek custody “negotiations” every year: Gumms’ or Brewers’ first? when to switch? car transportation responsibilities? etc. This year, as in the last two when we were able to go home for two weeks, we made the move from the Gumm’s downstairs guest room to the Brewers’ downstairs bedroom (formerly Daddy’s old bedroom) on Christmas Eve day so that we could give the working pastor and pastor’s wife fewer responsibilities at a busy time, and be in place for Brewer Christmas breakfast and stockings the next morning.

We took you to your first ever Christmas Eve service at UPC, the church where Mommy and Daddy were married. We arrived early to get seats (as you will learn, being early is a Brewer tradition), sang carols by candlelight and listened to readings, then Daddy took you to show you off to people he knew from working at UPC as a sound tech. Then home again for the difficult task of falling asleep before Christmas morning. (You don’t even know what you have to look forward to yet Christmas Day and already you don’t want to sleep!)

We rejoice in our Christmas gifts from God: the birth of our Savior and your presence with us these last 6 months.

Saturday nights are special: they are “games” nights and one of the reasons you were born. You see, Daddy and Uncle Caleb went to the same high school and had many of the same friends. Nearly every Saturday night, and many Thursdays, these friends would gather at someone’s house for a variety of geek pastimes: GURPS, Settlers of Catan, Magic, etc. Since Uncle Caleb’s parents (i.e. Grandpa Tom and Grandma Carol) had the extra space, “games” was often at the Gumms’; it was here that Daddy met and flirted with Mommy.This evening you got to meet the games guys, many of whom were in Mommy and Daddy’s wedding. Ten years ago, if you had told these guys that they’d be meeting you, they might not believed it…in ten years more, maybe you can join the Saturday night festivities.

As of last night, you have now met all of your immediate family: great-grandparents (3), grandparents (4), aunts (2), uncles (2) and, of course, parents (2). Great-grandma Betty, Mommy’s dad’s mother and wife of your namesake, George Gumm, got to hold you, bounce you on her lap, and show you how to make new sounds. All day, you, her 9th great-grandchild, showed her your tummy time moves, smiles, giggles, and “singing.”

Not that you got to try any…for dinner, Grandpa Tom spoiled Betty and Mommy by making them a seafood pasta with shrimp and scallops: two of their favorites and biggest things they crave when they come to Seattle.

You were born with a full head of ~1″ long dark brunette hair. As your first months went by, some of this hair, especially on the back and sides, rubbed off, leaving you with long hair on top and a little duck tail on your neck. New medium blond hair started growing in. At 6 months, 2 weeks, you had some 4-5 inch hair on top and <1″ everywhere else, and Mommy decided to even it out. So, enter her first attempt at cutting your hair.You hair was so light and fluffy, and you were so anxious to look up and around at what Mommy was doing, that it did not look much more even.

Finally, Daddy came to rescue you both with the clippers, currently on a 9 setting. This resulted in relatively respectable short blond spikes on top and even hair (except the duck tail) all around. Daddy will cut more in about a month once the areas excessively shortened by Mommy have grown out a bit.

Since Mommy started dating Daddy in 2005, there are a few traditions that our families have started and kept up over the holidays. One of those, that you got to experience today, is the trip to downtown Seattle for Santa pictures and shopping. Every year, Nordstroms hosts a Santa Claus and the Brewer children get their picture taken with him. They line up outside the store in the morning before Santa arrives and keep warm with Starbucks goodies. Grandma Lois orders one print for the collection. (Some day you need to look through the pictures of Daddy, Auntie Antje, and eventually Mommy, from your age through being the oldest “kids” there.) This year, Auntie Antje and Grandpa Don got there early to save us a spot at the front of the line. We picked up Uncle Caleb on the way down. You were perfect: you sat on Santa’s lap, gave his long beard a good tug, and smiled a big open-mouth smile the first try. We were paid and out of there in <5 minutes.

After pictures comes shopping at Westlake Center: getting truffles for Grandma Lois at Godiva, checking out the quirky stuff at Fireworks, squeezing through the packed aisles of the Japanese shop, and generally trying to check off people on Christmas lists. Next, off to Pikes Place Market for tasty food, including hom bows at the Chinese bakery, and more quirky stores. Finally, a trip to Nordstrom’s Rack for a mostly futile attempt to find shoes for the large of foot: Uncle Caleb, Mommy and Daddy. Past years have also included catching a movie at Pacific Place, but this year, we decided that you had probably had enough excitement for one day.

All children have modeling careers…it’s the persistence of the photographers that determine the lengths of those careers. Your modeling duties today included “sitting” for your 6 month portraits. We traveled to Grandma Carol’s workplace at the Seattle Times, showed you off, carefully ate lunch, then walked to the photographer’s. There, you were amazingly cooperative as we changed outfits, gave you objects to play with, and set you on chairs, blankets and piles of evidently yummy fabric–all while repeatedly flashing bright lights in your eyes.

Hopefully Daddy can get samples of said session posted soon.

Every good dinner needs entertainment and you were part of it today. You supervised as Mommy and Daddy helped Grandpa Tom and Grandma Carol set up a spaghetti dinner at church. At the dinner, you were passed from person to person so that they could make faces at you, bounce you up and down (you are really missing your monkey bouncer), and manage baby drool. One of the diners also brought a guitar, which provided fun, energetic music for singing and dancing (baby style and otherwise).

Since your 4 month birthday, your food repertoire has expanded and you seem to love every new solid food we can spoon you. Fruits are your favorite: bananas, apples, pears, plums, peaches and, as of yesterday, prunes. (Mommy and Daddy learned, however, that the power of prunes should be used wisely and in small doses…) For veggies, you have chowed down on avocado, peas, green beans, summer squash, winter squash, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. Rice and oatmeal are your two cereal mix-ins; we’ll try millet later this week.

We had a rough night last night and it was Mommy’s bad. She fed you what she thought were the avocado bits of guacamole. The several times you woke up screaming with very painful digestive issues told her that some onion or garlic must have snuck into your system. She apologized profusely and joined you in several naps.