Christmas plus

Christmas is many things to our family. It is Christmas, of course, but it is also Eric's birthday and it is, additionally, a chance to celebrate Ethan's birthday 11 days late with extended family. Here's how we celebrated all of those things this year:

First, we did the old Polish family first-birthday tradition of determining a child's future profession through his choice of one of four objects. (You may remember we put Emerson through this same ordeal on his first birthday.) Ethan's four choices were: priest (necklace with a cross, no one had a rosary handy), business man (silver dollar, which is the "right" way to do it even though Emerson got a hundred dollar bill due to limited silver dollar availability), farmer (clementine, and I would say he doesn't need to be a citrus farmer but let's face it, we live in Florida), and a technologist (mouse). Missing from the line-up was the shot glass because none was available. I think that's for the best, because alcoholic isn't really a profession, is it.

Here Ethan considers his options and seems to consult his brother:

Then he commits: the mouse! Future technologist it is.

Then it was time for double cake. Eric got candles on a cheesecake which Emerson helped him blow out.

Eric and Ethan together blow out the one last remaining candle on top of an igloo-shaped cake with penguins playing on it.

And here we are at Christmas 2012: