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Thanksgiving turned out to be way too much like a wedding. I got emotionally invested in the concept of Hosting My First Holiday Dinner. I thought that a lot of things were under my control that in fact were not. Well-meaning female relatives contributed food that I had really very much wanted to cook myself. Whatever. Dinner was fine, the Cowboys won, Greg smoked a Heritage Turkey, my 99-year-old Nana flew down from NY to join us, Oliver ended the night in a cage, and I learned that holiday meals are not in the same genus as having your friends over for a nice dinner, even if they ought to be.

As soon as Thanksgiving was over, Savannah's Christmas decorations went up. In addition to the grazing light-up reindeer and giant blow-up Santas all over people's lawns, City government festooned the parks with tree lights and red ribbons, and there was even a very special sleigh on the steps of the Board of Ed, where St. Nick posed for photos with tourists. I was asked often enough about my plans for Oliver's visit to Mall Santa's lap, that I had to come up with a stock answer: "It's not really his thing."

Last winter, back in NY, I begged Greg for a Christmas tree, and he wouldn't let me have one, for fear of confusing our then-5-month-old. This year he wanted one, but I couldn't stomach it any more. I think Savannah is so beautiful all lit up for the holidays, but I've never felt like such a minority. Oliver, on the other hand, is completely charmed by Christmas. We took nightly walks through our neighborhood to admire the lights, and I cannot begin to express his sadness when the houses went dark in January. He still, now 6 months later, calls out "Santa!" and "Deer!" when we pass their old sites. He remembers every house.

Incidentally, he did like Chanukkah too. After 8 nights, he had clearly forged a new neural pathway: candles -> object covered in pretty paper -> removal of paper -> cool new thing for Oliver. He knows how to unwrap now.

The big thing for Oliver, developmentally over these 2 months, was learning to eat solid food. At 16 months old, he would sometimes eat a few spoonfuls of rice cereal, and sometimes not, and that was it. No baby food at all. No bananas. No yogurt. No finger food. No Cheerios. Nothing but bottle after bottle of formula.

We asked for a lot of advice and got a lot of evaluations, and by the end of it two pediatricians, one pediatric ENT, and three physical therapists all told us the exact same thing: He's fine, take away the bottle. So we severely limited the bottle. The process deeply sucked, but everyone was right. He's fine. He's a great eater, actually, though it took a month for his portions to reach anything like normal toddler size.

Lastly, our friends Betsy and Jose and their daughter Evie moved away to Kansas City (via Memphis) right before Christmas, and it bears a blog mention because I was very sad to see them go and I still miss them. I don't think it's harder to make good friends in Savannah than New York, just that good friends are rare anywhere. And someone who will meet me and Oliver for a playdate anywhere at any time is very rare indeed.

-Michelle