Harry's First Christmas

Harry's first Christmas was early, eventful, and exhausting.  Now a Christmas tradition, Harry slept with his Mommy & Daddy in our Christmas pajamas and awoke promptly at 7:30am to discover what Santa brought him.  Coffee was put on and Harry's stocking unloaded.  The first gift from Santa was a furry Christmas collar donned with jingle bells that sounded the entire day, and actually flew off when Harry needed to shake something off his back.  

Through thorough sniffing and pawing, Harry discovered that Santa also brought him a new Nylabone (highly recommended for aggressive chewers), dental chews (Santa wants Harry to have fresh breath), treats, a doggy towel for bath-time, and of course plenty of treats.  

Before heading to our family Christmas, Harry was presented with a frosted special treat from his Daddy from Doggie Style.

Even though it was hard to part with all of the new smells and excitement in our home, we packed Harry into the car and drove to our family Christmas.  Harry stayed with my parents and played with his fur-uncles (three red Australian Shepherds) while the boo and I started Christmas with brunch at his family's home.  While we were gone, Harry bragged about his new presents to his cousins and proceeded to engage them in suicide sprints from the patio door to the back of the fence over and over again.  

Following our Christmas brunch, we joined my family for the long drawn out family tradition of an 8 hour Christmas.  My family spends that much time opening gifts one by one, eating, and getting distracted until around 10:30.  Harry opened gifts from his human-aunts and human-cousins and a few gifts from his fur-cousins and fur-uncles.

And he watched his fur-family and human family open their gifts.  Fur-cousins and fur-uncles were given Harry's home-made treats seen here.  He even helped open a few gifts, and attempted to play sparkle princess houses with his human-cousin.  Below he's sitting with my niece as she opens the Snow White Sparkling Princess Harry picked out for her.

It felt like Harry was excited the entire day.  His attempts to play with his fur-cousin jug Karma were put off after he pawed her a little too many times.   But keeping them apart was a challenge while opening gifts one-handed.  Maybe after four hours or so of constant playing, Harry started to doze by the tree, creating a perfect Christmas moment for his Mommy.  

Now that Harry knows how fun Christmas is, he has vowed to be good until Christmas 2013.  However, since that vow he has chewed the face off of his new piggy toy given to him by his human-cousin.  I guess that doesn't matter, because Santa can't resist this face!