On Christmas Eve, I had a strange worry that maybe Santa had slacked this year. There were no big toys like the kitchen from last year. After having spent the last couple days trying to find homes for the new toys, I don't think that's a problem. In fact, if you judge the success of Christmas on how much square footage of the living room floor is covered in toys, then it was definitely a success.
But it was so much more than the toys and we had a really great Christmas. My parents flew in on the 23rd to celebrate with us. When Pat asked me what we were having for dinner when my parents got here, he was devastated when I said, "Soup!" I made a really nice French onion soup anyway and Pat went out and got Chinese for everyone too. That's probably the beginning of a tradition right there.
On Christmas Eve we got all our cooking done early in the morning - meatballs, lasagna and cookies for Santa and then we went ice skating, which has become a tradition - 3 years in a row. I think my favorite part of skating was not the skating but all the things Jack said he was going to do when he got on the ice. He was pretty sure he was going to skate on one foot all around the rink. And Casey said that she was going to spin around and around. There was no spinning or skating on one leg, but they definitely improved over last year and we spent more time there than last year. Casey didn't really say much while we were there, but she didn't want to stop skating when it was time to leave. We also got to see the Zamboni come out and Jack kept asking when it was coming again.
My goal for church this year was for all of us to get seats so I set a departure time of 3pm for 4pm mass. Of course this was the day I had to wake Casey from a nap. We got seats even though they were in the narthax. The kids were great during church. The priest had the children come up to the front for the sermon and he read them a story. Jack had been clinging to Pat the whole time so I didn't think he would want to go up there. But all of a sudden, Jack was down and heading towards the front. He was practically running the last time I saw him. Then Pat took Casey up closer and she just kept saying, "I can't see he. I can't see he." because she couldn't see Jack.
I forgot to put the lasagna in the oven for time bake for church so we had to wait a bit before it was ready. I fed the kids some pasta and then made a little frosting for the cookies. They had a great time decorating their trays of cookies. A little frosting, some spoons, some crazy food coloring and some dinosaur and fish sprinkles = perfectly decorated cookies for Santa in the eyes of the 2 to 4 year old crowd.
Since there were no big toys to assemble, the Christmas eve cursing was kept to a minimum. It was actually me who had the toughest time with a toy. I got Jack some toy that flings plastic helicopters into the air. I couldn't get it to work for the life of me and I was worried that he would be frustrated with it in the morning. Pat got it on the first try though and Jack has had no problems with it, so the only thing I can figure is that it had an anti-girl mechanism installed in it.
Christmas morning was great! The kids loved all their toys and got excited about all of them. Wrapping paper all over the floors, boxes ripped open, ignoring any gift that might be clothes (even though Legos were hiding underneath)...I'd say it was a typical Christmas morning with a 2 and 4 year old.
Casey got everything she could possibly need to take care of her babies - bunk beds, a swing, a high chair and a stroller. She's been taking very good care of them. She also got a camera and within a day had snapped 200 pictures already. She has no idea what she's taking pictures of but she looks really cute when she does it.
Jack got an aircraft carrier, a marble run, Evil Dr. Porkchop and a tool bench. He's so happy with his toys that he's been coming downstairs when he wakes up to play with them instead of coming into the bedroom to wake me up.
We eventually got out of pajamas (some of us anyway) and had a great dinner straight out of the pages of Southern Living. The Christmas fun was just beginning as big fat snowflakes started falling out of the sky and made for a white Christmas around here. The kids were already in bed but it snowed all day on the 26th and they had a great time playing it.
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