Jilly Bean & Company: Christmas in SPAM Town

It's only fitting that I should blog about "Baby's First Christmas", right? So here goes....we spent Christmas in SPAM Town--yes, you read that right, I said SPAM Town. Really, we spent Christmas in Austin, MN. Austin, for those of you who don't know, is about 40 miles from Rochester and is the home of Hormel, and therefore, SPAM. They even have a SPAM museum and serve a SPAM burger at the local Culver's. Why, oh why, you ask, would we spend Christmas in there? The answer in one word: moonlighting. Matt had a chance to moonlight at the Austin Medical Center from 5 p.m. Christmas Eve until 6 a.m. this morning...and although not ideal for holiday time, meant great experience as a radiologist and a nice chunk of change that will come in handy for the impending daycare bills. Plus, we figured, Jillian won't remember this Christmas anyway.
I must say that this sounded like a good idea when we agreed on it in June, but I was less than thrilled about the decision when the time actually came. But, we got through it, and had a memorable first Christmas with Jillian after all. I made some Creamy Artichoke and Leek Soup to take for Christmas Eve and Matt helped by whipping up the Baked Ziti for Christmas day and we hauled it all, along with all of Jillian's 'stuff', to the resident apartment in Austin. Matt was called in quite often and Jillian and I spent a lot of bonding time in a very small space with a TV that had only about 3 channels. I'd say all in all she did well for her first time away from home, but I definitely noticed changes in eating and sleeping patterns. It's amazing to me what little barometers babies are, and how they sense any little change.
Here's a few pics to mark 'Baby's First Christmas'

Opening presents with Mom on Christmas Eve before we left, sporting her reindeer sleeper (too bad the reindeer feet got cut off in the picture). Yes, we did buy her a few presents, and even wrapped them...going through the whole charade for the sake of the moment. She could have cared less, of course, but we had fun.