Christmas Rewind

I'm finally recovering from all that is Christmas. This year, that means that I'm just about ready to start writing out my Christmas New Years cards to send out to friendss and family. In fact, earlier today I picked up the photos of the wee ones visiting Santa (from Christmas Eve) to put into the cards.

So let's do a little review, shall we?

We started out our celebrations in St. Louis with my husband's family. We froze at the Rams game and then came back to his parents for the big Christmas celebration with that side. We had the traditional turkey Christmas dinner (we're not very original) before opening up the multitude of presents from them.

Little Miss was most impressed by her new black Tinkerbell backpack. I have a feeling her "old" Disney princess backpack will be headed for the donation bin by ohhh say January 5. She actually wore it around all day yesterday during Christmas while playing with her other toys, which was very cute. She also got a huge Tinkerbell soft blanket from her Uncle and his girlfriend that has replaced all other blankets as her favorite.



Mister Man was just as thrilled with his toys from the Alphabet train puzzle he got to the Spiderman and Friends Matching Game that I have now played enough times to know which top goes to which bottom within about 0.00000002 seconds. Fortunately, it's better than the Scooby Doo Haunted House game, so I'm not going to complain.



I also tried to get a picture of the wee ones by the tree thinking I could use that for the Christmas card photo. My SIL took that as in invitation to tell her daughter to plop down in front of the tree. Ditto with my husband's aunt's children (yes, who are younger than the wee ones). Fine. No one cooperated with this picture.



Then I asked them to do a silly picture, hoping that would get it out of them - after removing the youngest cousin who had no interest in being in the photo at all.



Finally, I got a decent picture of the wee ones under the tree. Then I decided that they weren't dressed Christmas-y enough anyway, so I decided to not use it anyway. Yep, that's me - Ms. I-Can-Change-My-Mind-Anytime-I-Want-To.



We ended up leaving St. Louis a day early due to the forecasted snow in Chicago and freezing rain in St. Louis. Neither sounded appealing to drive in, and the precipitation wasn't supposed to let up until midday on Christmas Eve. We had plans for Christmas Eve, and some of those included finally seeing Santa. We were going to try to do it on Monday, but my husband got something in his eye at the Rams game and had to go to the eye doctor for most of Monday (or so it seemed).

We've discovered that Mister Man is too big to sit on Santa's lap now. Or at least this Santa, who can't figure out how to hold a five year old boy. We finally gave up on this idea and had Santa stand by both wee ones.







We also had plans to be in the pageant at our church that afternoon. Lucky for Mister Man and Little Miss, they got to be the shepherd and sheep, just as they'd hoped.





It was a fully unscripted pageant, with the director of religious formation reading the story, interspersed with carols, while the appropriate characters came up to the aisle and deposited their sheep/shepherds/angels in the creche. The wee ones went around twice because they liked the stage so much. And Little Miss came up the aisle a third time with Mister Man yelling "Little Miss - GET back here" just like a good little shepherd tending his sheep. When she didn't come back, he chased her up the aisle and herded her to the back of the church.

After church, we came home and had my yummy lasagne dinner (including molten chocolate cake for dessert - and yes, I'll share the recipes eventually). Every Christmas Eve, we open up a single present. They were both thrilled with the new books that Grandma and Grandpa got them -- we love Peanuts books around here!





Come Christmas morning, I turn into Mean Mommy. I make the wee ones bring all four stockings up into bed with us to open and look at there. This gives me just a touch more time to actually wake up before having to get out of bed.

This year, my stocking contained -- wait for it -- a banana, an orange, and the Alamo Bowl tickets that *I* bought that arrived for me on Monday. Unfortunately, my husband forgot about my stocking until about 10pm on Christmas Eve when I was at church singing in the choir for the late service.

Fortunately, he made up for it by buying me a Vitamix! My old blender no longer worked, but I couldn't justify paying the cost of the Vitamix, though I have lusted over it for over a decade. Unfortunately, I ended up returning most of the other gifts he got for me (two candles that I'd be allergic to, a quesadilla maker, and canisters that were unfortunately too small for what I need). All I really needed though, was the VitaMix. Yay!

The wee ones really loved what Santa brought them. Little Miss got new Wellies, a really cool animal tag game, and a traditional Christmas book. Mister Man was just as thrilled with his Christmas book, Thomas train set (yes, another one), and Handy Games for Boys set. Santa only brings three presents in our house, just like the Wise Men brought Jesus. My parents make up the difference.



After breakfast of blueberry coffee cake (mmm, another Tasty Tuesday opportunity!), Mister Man finally remembered to check to see if Santa ate the milk and cookies we put out and the carrots for the reindeer. Just like last year, Mister Man put the carrots by the fireplace, but the milk and cookies went to his place at the table so he could have a nice respite and sit down at the table to eat them - just like the rules he has to follow. Awwww!

Later in the day, we went to my parents' house for dinner and to open up the rest of the presents from my parents. Yes, they're very spoiled. I've given up on telling them to stop buying things. I'll be having a massive giveaway of barely or never used items come January. Someone will enjoy them, right?

The hit gift from my parents was the slot car racer set. It has 23 feet of track and is remote controlled. It somehow senses where it's going so it goes around the curves and avoids the barrel obstacles you put out on the track. That's another toy that will stay at my parents' house.



In fact, Little Miss liked it so much that she picked up the blue car and would not put it down for anything. She even opened her presents one-handed. Notice the right hand behind her back holding onto the car in case anyone might want to look at it.



All in all, it was a fun Christmas. Lots of fun and entertainment from the wee ones. My favorite quote of the day had to come from Mister Man. The Thomas set had pine trees as part of it. The base of one tree was cracked, which he found very upsetting. "Mommy, there must have been an elf who didn't like his job. He rushed through making my toy, and he broke it." Ahhh, the innocence of youth!

I hope you all had a wonderful and joyous Christmas (or Hanukkah)!