Christmas in New Orleans - Photo Dump!

Slacker alert! It's January 17th and I'm just now posting stuff from Christmas. Sorry y'all. Much like the rest of the country, we've been fighting off cold after cold after cold with a case of rotavirus in between. It hasn't been pretty 'round these parts! Also, I had about a million pictures, so it was nearly impossible to edit all of them. Please forgive me if they're super dark, blurry, crooked, poorly lit, or just plain boring!
For Charlie's first Christmas we flew into New Orleans to stay with my mom and dad.
Here's the dude pre-flight being his little silly self.

And in-flight...

Woop! He slept for the majority of the flight!
The first full day we were there, my dad and I stopped off at City Park. I miss this place so much. It's like something out of a story book.

I can't get enough of the Spanish moss. If I weren't so afraid of being attacked by the little critters living in the moss, I would've grabbed a few handfuls and brought it back to put on our tree.

We went to Celebration in the Oaks one night to check out the lights.
You know Santa's gotta get those presents to the lil kiddies in on the bayou, so he navigates Southern Louisiana by pirouge and gator!

The weather was all kinds of crazy when we were there. Hot and muggy one day, and freezing cold then next. The night we went to Celebration in the Oaks it was pretty dang warm. I had hope that it would turn cool, but my flannel shirt had me sweatin most of the night.

Charlie LOVED all of the lights and music.

We even got scammed out of $3 (per person) for a 90 second ride on the carousel. It was Charlie's first time on one so that made it worth it :)

That's my sister, Katherine with goofy brother-in-law, Ben on the left in the picture above.

By the time we got to Story Land in the park, Charlie was sacked out. I decided to recreate the manger scene with the three little pigs as wise men and Charlie as baby Jesus. Turned out pretty good, huh?
The next day we went to Parkway Bakery for poboys.

Right as we sat down I overheard my sister say to Ben "That guy looks like he's been in a movie" then Ben said "Yea, he kinda looks like that Justin Long guy". Then Mitch glanced over his shoulder and said "That's because that IS Justin Long" So you know I had to sneak a picture. See, celebrities are just like us. They wait in long lines for delicious poboys, too.

Mitch kept saying he wanted to yell out "

I'M A P.C.!!!" silly boy.
Then we walked through the River Walk. I made my sister push the nugget around. I had just told her it was practice for her future nuggets when I snapped this picture. Hence the "Heeeey! (are you crazy!!!!)" look on her face.

and we took some really cheesy pictures in a photo booth...

Then went home for rides on the hand truck. Charlie doesn't look happy but he was actually highly amused.

On Christmas Eve-Eve we went to see the lights Downtown at Fulton Street.

Then we walked over to the Fairmont hotel to see the lights there.

...and then across the street to Jesuit church to catch everyone leaving mass.

Then I ran into a Saint who I'd never seen before. There was a girl kneeling at his statue praying, so when she got up to leave my dad and I asked her if she knew what the Saint's name was. She laughed and (with the cutest little Caribbean accent) said she didn't know either. She said that she told him that she was sorry she didn't know who it was and that she would look up his name as soon as she got home. I thought that was so sweet and funny.

Turns out it's St. Francis Xavier. What a head of hair that guy has!
Then we ran into a Saint who I could never forget. St. Anthony! High fives for baby Jesus!

On Christmas Eve we all drove up the Mississippi to St. James Parish to see the bonfires on the levee. Every year on Christmas Eve the people who live along the river build dozens of bonfires at the top of the levee to light the way for Santa to find his way down the river. It's basically a HUGE, free party with food, music, and fireworks. We sat in traffic for about 30 minutes before we parked the cars and walked up the levee.

I love the degrees of paleness in the picture below...

Charlie comes in first place, followed closely by my big, pale, glowing face, then my dad and Mitch tie for being slightly tan, followed by Ben, and then is you look reeeally closely, you can see my sister way over on the right.

On Christmas day we woke up early to go to mass then came home and ate left over Krispy Kreme.

Then we all ate lunch and passed out. I'd like to thank my sister for stealing my camera and getting this great shot of me, Charlie and Mitch sleeping on the couch and the next pic of her and Ben. Didn't find these til I was going through all of our pictures when we got back to San Diego.

Charlie was a MESS for the rest of the day.

He mostly just wanted to play with the ribbons and paper from the unwrapped gifts.

We only had a few days left after Christmas before we would have to fly back. So we tried to pack in as much NOLA time as we could. We went to eat at Superior...

Then took Charlie to City Park again to try out the swings... his first time!

Then visited some family at the cemetery. Did y'all know we bury people above ground? New Orleans is below sea level, so if we bury them below ground they would pop up and float away in a flood. Yuck.

The day before we left to go back to San Diego we went to the zoo....another first for Charlie.

And then we cried and flew back to San Diego. Boo. I hate leaving NOLA.
But we had a second Christmas to get back to at Mitch's parents' house...

The end!