Baby's 1st Christmas

Dear Joshi,
We had a wonderful Christmas season. Although times were stressful with Papa having a new job working long hours, we managed to squeeze in some wonderful Christmas activities, including taking an old-fashioned steam train ride around Munich, going to a Christmas tree farm near the Alps and cutting down our own small Christmas tree, a Christmas party in Austria hosted by Christian's new employer, Bischof. Everyone swooned over you in your Santa hat. We also made an appearance at the JYM Christmas party and you were the heart throb of nearly every female JYMer there.

Your Oma came down for Zwickau for the Christmas and we spent it very low key in our cozy little apartment. We did German-American Christmas, in other words, we decorated the tree and did a gift exchange on the 24th and then hung up the stockings and left cookies for Santa, who brought more presents for everyone on the 25th. It was wonderful. Mama made Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings for Christmas day dinner and it was a wonderful white snowy Christmas. We took a walk on Christmas day through the snow-covered neighborhood and not a soul was out besides us. It was truly a winter wonderland.
And you enjoyed Christmas, except for being sick with a fever on the 23rd and crying inconsolably for hours, breaking mama's heart all the way....being afraid of Oma, who was a stranger to you again after so much time (3 months!), by the 24th you felt quite a bit better and on Christmas day, you were back to your old self and you and Oma the best of pals.
You were not so much into the packages and the unwrapping, but you loved all the new toys Santa brought you.
You are nearly 9 months old now. You are definitely saying Mama....since you were 7 1/2 months old you have been saying Mamamamama....but we weren't sure if you meant me specifically or if you were just mumbling words. You were at Lena and Bernhard's for the day once, while Mama and Papa had some downtime at the Sauna and you looked around for me at some point saying Mamamamama.....
Now it is clear though that you mean it.
I also swear you tried to say Kitty Cat to Erasmus.....sounds a bit like Keeee Kaaaa
but this could be a coincidence???

You are definitely understanding a lot and you are busy playing, playing, playing exploring your little world. You are able to crawl now, more or less....not your favorite activity though, and it is more just a necessary evil to get to one of your stations where you like to pull up to standing. Like the coffee table. You pull yourself up there and play with the coasters for long stretches. You love standing and seem to never tire of it. You can even stand for a few seconds on your own. It is soooo cute, to watch you finally becoming more mobile.
I love you my little Christmas elf!


Here as some nice fotos taken of us at the JYM Christmas party: