The Christmas Beard and Other Sharp Family Traditions

Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Years to you all from the Sharp Family!

Colby has an unofficial tradition of growing a beard over Christmas break. It always varies in its duration and bushiness, but you can usually count on the lumberjack look starting around the middle of December. This is December 13th, at the beginning of beard season. Another tradition for our family is that of Christmas PJs. We buy brand new pajamas, but we can't wear them until Christmas Eve night. I had great dreams of using my mad sewing skills to make Colby and Bres matching pajama pants for their Christmas PJs this year. Needless to say, I didn't get around to actually sewing them until a couple of days before Christmas. Colby's turned out just fine and I started to think that I might be actually getting a hang of this sewing business. But then, I looked at Breslin's pants in horror. I had sewed them upside down! The legs were super wide apart and all the elephants were upside down!

Isn't Colby the sweetest? He said that it was good that I sewed them that way because then the elephants would look right-side up to Breslin. But I couldn't live the rest of my life with the story of, "Remember that time Alaina sewed Breslin's PJs upside down?" So on Christmas Eve, I was at JoAnn Fabrics, of all the God-forsaken places, buying more fabric and frantically sewing tiny little pajama pants. It turned out all right, and my boys had matching pajama pants in the end. Notice the beard has made significant progress at this point...

Lou Lou looked super adorable in her Christmas jammies too, although I hate to say that hers did not last to Christmas morning...

Another one of my favorite traditions is our Christmas morning breakfast. We always light candles and eat cinnamon rolls and smokey links before opening stockings. Dharia Lou had her first cinnamon roll and rather enjoyed it, I think.

Breslin, on the other hand, just wanted to blow out the candles on the table. Tomorrow he'll have two candles to blow out...it's his second birthday! I absolutely cannot believe that my baby boy is two years-old.

For our present to each other, Colby and I decided to take a romantic trip to Chicago. There aren't any pictures, because apparently if kids aren't involved, we don't think to have a camera with us. It was wonderful, though; full of great dinners, museums, an awesome Broadway show (Jersey Boys...hence the new soundtrack to our blog), and some shopping.

My favorite part of the trip had to be after we visited a cool, out of the way Jazz Bar (The Back Room) and listened to three hours worth of terrific live jazz and were walking home. We had a few drinks during the three hours at the bar and were feeling pretty good. We spotted a Dunkin' Donuts (there is one on pretty much every corner in Chicago) and stopped to get some coffee and a donut. Colby decided to buy an extra donut for a homeless person. Colby offered the donut to the first person that asked us for money for something to eat. But this guy didn't want Colby's donut! He said he had a weak stomach. So we kept moving and eventually found someone who would eat the donut. Who passes up Dunkin' Donuts? Seriously!