A belated Merry Christmas to all! Our festivities started with on Christmas Eve. The kids decided they really wanted to shop for the family. So I packed them up and off we headed to the Dollar Store. Now, you would think I would have gotten out of their pretty inexpensively, but $41 later...... we had FINALLY finished our shopping. Andy had to work....trash never stops, but he was able to get off early. We headed off for or usual get-together at Dad & Jann's house with Karen, Mike & kids, and my step-brother Kurt. It was a fancy soiree with our traditional pizza dinner. We were tipped off that the kids would be getting clothes for presents, so we brought a gift, a kid's board game for them to play. They played the game many times and loved it. They all got hats and gloves with their clothes, so they all had a great time parading around the house with the hats and gloves on. It was a fun evening, and Jann's deviled eggs were great. (Andy loved the little smokies.) Mike went online on his Blackberry and check Santa's progress on NORAD. When he first checked, Santa was in North Korea. By the time we got home, Andy went online to check and he was in Nova Scotia, Canada. The kids scrambled to get into PJs. "Daddy, where is he?..... Albuquerque, New Mexico? Is that close?" Then they would hurry even faster. Then they had to out out milk, cookies and carrots and Rose wrote a note for Santa. "Daddy, where is he now? South Dakota?.... is that close?" "YES!!! You better hurry up and go to sleep!" We let them lay on our bed and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This usually puts them right out, but they were SO excited that they watched the whole thing. I finally went up to lay down with them until they fell asleep around 10:30. The kids slept till about 8:15 Christmas morning. This was much appreciated by his elves who were up until 3 AM getting the house ready for his arrival. Santa delivered as hoped... good thing we got to see him a few days prior. The kids were SO excited to go down the stairs and see that indeed, Santa had been there. "David, SANTA CAME!!!" They hurried over to scope out all the presents. We of course let them jump in and start to tear them open. David kept exclaiming, "I'm going to open my Wii Mario Kart." Wow, a giant helicopter, Littlest Pet Shop Pets, a Tow Truck, a purse and all sorts of Barbie make-up, a keyboard, PIXOS! With each present David opened, he became more and more dejected..... he would turn to me and say"this isn't my Mario Kart." Santa had strategically placed all the Wii gifts at the back of the tree, so these were the last for the kids to open. When they finally got to them, they were ecstatic. I LOVE to see them so excited. This has really been the most exciting Christmas because the kids all truly believe in Santa. As it should be! It almost makes getting evicted from the house, because we can't pay the mortgage, because we greased Santa's pockets worth it.It was requested that the Wii be set up immediately, so I spent the next-however-long installing it. A quick phone call to our brother-in-law Brad for a little advice, and we, and when I saw we...I mean me.....had it up and running. At this point, David took over and showed us what to do to start the play...... now that really isn't so surprising, is it? It went over VERY well, as expected. Rose and Joe both started out playing with David, but faded after a short while, and moved on to other things. I packed up the wagon a little later, and off we went to Karen's for afternoon festivities and dinner, and as we knew it would happen, Andy had to stay home with David so he could get in as much Wii time as possible. They did come meet us eventually, and we had more Christmas fun.
Madeline was really excited because she got the hamster she really wanted, and had talked about forever. She has named her Fluffy, and she really is quite cute. Owen got a basketball hoop that took 8 man-hours to assemble. Next time Santa, please leave some $ to pay for assembly..... by someone else. Mike's Mom and step-dad were there along with 2 cousins from Oklahoma, I think, and of course my Mommy Dearest! We had a great dinner. Rose tried ham for the first and loved it. There was another round of gift-giving for the kids and Mom. Madeline and Rose both got Hannah Montana guitars and strutted their Rocker stuff pretty convincingly. Soon it was time to head home, where David of course wanted to jump back on the Wii. All I wanted to do was head up and get in bed, which is just what I did. Joey came up with me, and Rose followed shortly thereafter. David was kicked off the Wii at 10 PM when he finally was made to come up to bed. Santa really was good to us this year.....well, to the kids mainly which is what we decided....and what it's really about for us right now.
Today has been a nice 'Christmas Hangover' day. The kids all slept till nearly 9 AM, as did we. The kids jumped right back on the Wii. This time we convinced them to try some new things. We played bowling, baseball (only 1 ornament has been broken so far by an errant baseball bat), boxing..... they kids are HILARIOUS to watch play this..... but of course, all roads lead to Mario Kart. I did take Joe and Rose for a walk to the park along with 3 other neighbor girls for a little while.... and Dave stayed home to play the Wii. It was nice to get out of the house. This evening Andy went to meet up with his good friend Kaz for drinks, so the kids and I headed out to look at Christmas lights. We have been a million times, but I always feel like we need to keep going, especially now that Christmas is officially over, because soon everyone will be taking them down. There are a few really good neighborhoods locally that "deck the halls".... We went the weekend before Christmas to our favorite neighborhood and had to compete with a double decker bus and 2 limos for viewing. My particular favorite place does Karaoke 1 or 2 nights right before Christmas. My Mom's neighborhood puts out luminaries in front of (almost) every house on Christmas Eve. It's been a while since I have driven through her neighborhood on Christmas Eve, but that's always fun to see too. I do love this time of year, it's so fun and festive. I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed holiday season this year.
A funny side note; I was in Costco about a week and a half ago on a rare shopping trip without the kids. I was looking at kids jammies alongside a couple. The man said to the woman..."no kid wants pajamas for Christmas".... I turned to him and said "what about for Hanukkah?" 
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