Christmas Day 2010

Sleep? Who needs sleep? We got to sleep at 2:00 a.m. after Mass and the kids still woke up at 6:30 . . . not because of excitement (they didn't have any built-up expectations about receiving gifts on Christmas--probably the last year that will be the case!) but because they naturally wake up that early no matter what. It was additionally hard for this mama because I had taken my anti-emetic medication after Mass only four hours earlier, as one of the ingredients is doxylamine (otherwise known as a sleeping pill). (And, amazingly, taking the medication only four hours late made me feel sick all day.)

Last night, Mass went fairly well. We had already dressed the kids before bed in comfortable daytime clothing, so all we had to do was put sweaters, socks, and shoes on sleeping children. We wrapped them in child-sized afghans to take to Mass so as not to fuss with jackets. Mary in particular cried for about a five-minute transition of getting into the car (making me wonder if I would regret this whole attempt) and, when I tried to soothe her and suggest she go back to sleep, she screamed, "I don't want to go back to 'seepies' in me car seat!" John ended up sleeping through almost the entire liturgy, while Mary stayed wide awake in my arms. She was in awe at how the church had been festooned ("Wook! Christmas trees! I think they have wights!") and with the exquisite music being sung and played from the choir loft.

We opened stockings--note the one Daddy put out for the new baby that is coming! In the afternoon, John told me sagely that "the new baby isn't here yet anyway" and "candy doesn't last forever," so could he have the new baby's chocolate? We also opened about two gifts each. We were so pleased that, once we explained to the kids how we'd be opening gifts every day for twelve days, they were calm and essentially satisfied with what we opened today. There was very little resistance, and no tears or moping about the pile of presents left remaining. Now, we'll see how that really proceeds for the next two weeks, but it went very well this morning.

John quite liked the book we put in Mary's stocking: "Who Is Coming To Our House?" and memorized it almost perfectly after hearing it four or five times.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find children's sunglasses that do not have cartoon characters or things such as flames or skulls on them? (About as hard to find the same in toothbrushes, pajamas, etc. . . .)

We gave the kids new snow boots in their current shoe sizes. We made sure they opened that gift today because we were expecting a possibility of snow--and, indeed, snow began falling lightly right at bedtime! The weather man is saying we will get two to five inches overnight.

John is so "unbranded" that doesn't even know that cartoon characters are available in all manner of paraphernalia, such as stuffed animals. (This is the child who saw some Sponge Bob Square Pants pajamas in Wal-Mart recently and asked me, "Why do those pajamas have cheese on them? That's silly!") Despite his familiarity with Curious George (we have about a dozen books and eighteen episodes on DVD), when he opened this thoughtful gift from his aunt and uncle, he exclaimed, "A monkey!" He spent all day calling it "a monkey" even though we told him who it was. Also, the stuffed animal gave the opportunity to show the innate difference between boys and girls: As soon as John opened it, Mary rushed over, grabbed it, and began cradling it tenderly like a baby. Then John found a long ribbon, tied it around the stuffed animal, and began swinging it wildly around the room to see what he could smash.

John received a kazoo in his stocking and Mary's big gift today was a selection of percussion instruments, so we broke out in a spontaneous family music-fest, each one of us playing an instrument to a random tune we made up. John had great fun conducting us, telling us when to start and stop the music.

We started this idea of opening gifts over the Twelve Days of Christmas not so much to be traditional but to help with John being overwhelmed with opening gift after gift when little kids naturally want to stop and play with one toy. We saw this effect by the time of his first Christmas at twelve months old. In fact, this morning I noted that John in particular (who shares my more quiet temperament that becomes overwhelmed) paused after stockings, retreated to the kitchen, and sat on the windowsill. When I found him, he asked if I would please sit down next to him and "have a cereal picnic." So I sat down and he would eat a piece of dry cereal and ask me to eat a piece of dry cereal, so it was our own little quiet communion for five minutes before he wandered back in the den to open a big gift. Why would we want to force him to "get over" that calmness?

For breakfast, I made a casserole of eggs, bacon, vegetables, cheese, and hash browns plus a coffee cake (Trader Joe's mix--highly recommend it!) and bagels. Mary fascinates me, in that she ate all her casserole before she'd touch her cake (same child who rejected some fun kid lunch last week in order to eat my green salad).

At breakfast we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.

Unfortunately, I was experiencing a lot of pregnancy aches and pains today so after the morning's excitement, I had to spend most of the rest of the day lying on the couch. It's very humbling for me not to be able to "do it all" like a Super Woman Mama. I'm grateful that I have only to contend with my own self-criticism, as Chris is very supportive and understanding.