Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008: I decided to write this entry as a series of little moments that I found cute.

Dec 23 the twins have an extended argument about whether Santa eats the cookies in our house, or whether that takes too long so Santa takes the cookies back to his sleigh with him.

Dec 24 Alex says “Daddy, you don’t smell good. You have to smell good to go to parties.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

That evening as I’m tucking her in bed Chloe says “Mommy, you can’t go downstairs now, Santa might need to come”. I say that Santa will see the lights in our windows and know to wait until we go to bed, after all Daddy and I have to go downstairs to make the sticky buns. This appeases her temporarily. When Daddy goes in to kiss her good night Chloe says “Daddy, we have to turn the bathroom light off or Santa won’t come. He’ll think we are awake.” We usually leave the bathroom light on as a night light and to help the kids find the toilet if they need to use it in the middle of the night. Daddy assures her that Santa is very smart and that we’ve left the bathroom light on last year and Santa figured it out. I wonder what she’ll think of to worry about next.

Dec 25 Alex says “This is AWESOME!” no less than a dozen times as he opens and plays with his gifts. He’s really enthusiastic about several of the presents as he opens them, and then as he learns more about the features as he plays with them he again is so moved by their awesomeness. Chloe is also very excited about her presents and wants to show us each one. In the afternoon when we had a break between one set of company and the next Chloe tried out her new “Trace and Draw Projector”. She said she was going to make a whole book of pictures. I suggested she make some to give to MomMom and Grammy Barb later that night. She said “I think I’ll make 2 for MomMom, she’s really nice to us.” I was so proud of her. We’ve been trying to emphasize to the kids all these gifts that they are getting are really expressions of love from people who give their time and money to make the kids happy, time and money that those people could be spending on themselves. Of course the message is a little too mature for 5 year olds to really grasp. Mostly they just think about what they are getting instead of what they are giving, so I was really impressed by this one act of generosity.

The guinea pigs are obviously watching the TV as we play the new Wii in the playroom.

At the end of the evening I was again tucking Chloe in bed and wanted to take advantage of the quiet moment to ask her about her thoughts on the day. She just said “Mom, I’m SO tired.” I’ve never seen Chloe too tired to talk, but couldn’t fault her for it given all the activity of the past two days.

It was so great to get to spend Christmas with such a loving extended family. Sometimes I can’t even believe how blessed we are.