Claire's photo shoot for TWO MONTHS OLD. Nice pics Megan

Claire's first Christmas was a wonderful experience for many. Aaron, Megan and Claire were priveledged to light the Christ Candle at the family Christmas Eve service at our church in Hopkins, then we shared a light dinner at our home with Grandpa and Grandma Baines.

Then after a quiet Christmas Eve, we all woke up on Christmas morning and got to our routines, Claire and Mom ate, Dad went to work briefly as he was on call, and got cleaned up and dressed for a great day. We opened our stockings together, Megan and Aaron are getting some things for the basement this year (last year the bedroom furniture and see what happened).

Claire got some wonderfully useful items for herself from Santa in her stocking...it overflowed.

We went to Doug and Char's for presents and Christmas Dinner. Doug cooked up a wonderful spread of Christmas ham and all the fixings, there was even a planned pyrotechnics show for dessert.

We are currently working on filling up the my first Christmas album from the Busse's in Stevens Point, and are happy to have many wonderful memories and pictures from this our first Christmas together as a family.

Thanks to Doug and Char we also have a wonderful new camera to post pictures with. Many more photos to come!

Claire met Santa! She and Megan went to the mall to Santa's shop and had a very nice picture taken. She was very alert and polite for her time with Santa, bud alas did not ask for much this year. She seems to have all she needs, and so Mom and Dad are donating presents and new household items to other families and children who will need warm clothes and food this winter.

I'm sure she'll make the nice list again next year.

Aaron, Megan, and Claire picked out a nice family tree to decorate this year on the snowiest day in December so far. We received 8 inches of snow that day! The tree usually took Megan and I about 3 -4 hours and one nice bottle of wine to decorate, this year it took 3 days and no wine. There are now 7 Patterson family ornaments on the tree, one for each Christmas we have spent together. There are also lots of "baby's first" ornaments around. This may be the last year we can put even the most fragile ones close to the ground!