Reflections of Christmas (just) past

Well, Christmas is half a week behind us and my home still looks like a toy store threw up in it. Seriously… there are toys and kids stuff everywhere… and that’s when the place is cleaned up!  There’s no where to walk when the kids are playing… but they are happy – and sharing the toys (most of the time), which makes me happy.  They truly were blessed with gifts from their grandparents and Santa. There are new toy cars and trucks, dollies and strollers, a tea set, a v-reader, a View-Master (remember those!! Santa brought Noah one this year and he loves it as much as Ray and I did as kids!) and soooooooooo much more!

It was a whirlwind of activity again this year and I’m thinking that it was the last year that we celebrate the holiday this way. Typically Ray and I would spend Christmas Eve with our moms and family and then spend Christmas Day with our dads and family… it was a great way to be able to spend some time with all four families. Add two young (and still napping) children to the mix though and those two days are no longer what they used to be… instead of being fun and (semi) relaxing, they were long and stressful and well… I’ll get to the other part in a bit.

Christmas Eve started out great, the kids were up early… groan… but in good moods and we were able to leave the house with 1 minute to spare, which was amazing since I’m always running late… no matter how much prep time I have. We got to Ray’s moms house and shortly there after Noah looked liked this…

See those rosy cheeks?

Yeah so did we. At first we thought it was because he was too warm in the sweater I had put on him… so he was allowed to run hobble around in his undershirt… but even hours later his cheeks were still like that! We tried to think about what he had eaten…allergy maybe… teething? He is getting his molars after all. It wasn’t until later at my moms house that we figured out what was wrong… it happened as Abby was opening her gift from her Aunt K… (WARNING… gross factor!! Look at your own risk!!)

That came out of the blue… and was so very, very disgusting… though it didn’t seem to bother her! (gotta love the hair too… it sticks straight up when it’s clean… there’s no getting it down!)

Then both kids noses started running and let the fun times begin. We got home late that night and the kids were up early again the next morning. Knowing that we were working a (semi) tight schedule, Santa didn’t leave the gifts under the tree until we were in bed that night. Before we knew it, the kids were packed into the van again and off we drove to spend Christmas with grandfathers. Thankfully both kids slept on the way there… between getting up early, having a shortened nap, going to bed late the night before and then getting up early again, he was missing about 6-7 hours of sleep… not good!

Needless to say, between the lack of sleep and them being sick, both children were not at their best Christmas Day. We tried to keep the meltdowns to a minimum and the kids were still excited about their gifts, but nowhere near as enthusiastic as they should have been. It probably didn’t help either that Noah’s foot was hurting him as well… he was such a little  trooper with it, hobbling around from here to there… but there came a point when all he wanted was to have the splint taken off.

On the drive home that night Ray and I decided that next year we had to do something differently… whether it is to visit all 4 grandparents in one day instead of two or to stay home and invite them all to our home… we’ve yet to decide, but something is going to have to change… because next year Santa isn’t going to be making a late night stop at our house on Christmas Day… his gifts to the kids will be under the tree on Christmas morning and we will be opening them the way that we did this year… nice and relaxed while in our jammies… and the kids will have time to play and enjoy them.

(I started getting sick the day after Christmas and don’t know how many boxes of tissues we have gone through in the past few days… all I know is that Ray is the only one who hasn’t been sniffling, snoring, coughing and wiping his nose every 3 1/2 seconds. Lucky him!!! I’m hoping this cold doesn’t last much longer and that he doesn’t get it either!!)

I’m curious… how do you celebrate? Do you drive to the grandparents house, do they come to yours or do you meet somewhere else?