Our Christmas

I can’t believe the Big Day has finally come and gone. I could say that it was a letdown, because often the anticipation of things is so much better than the reality of them. But that wouldn’t be true. It was a most wonderful day!

It started about two hours after I went to bed (at three in the morning) when my “Mom Radar” went off. I went to investigate and caught my child red-handed with her stocking dumped out on the floor and a mouth stuffed full of chocolate. I should have been angry at her, but the rule in our house is that anything Santa leaves in your stocking is fair game as long as you don’t wake up Mama! (Isn’t it interesting that the sweets always quickly disappear, but they never eat the oranges?) Anyways, I shooed her back to bed as she hadn’t had much more sleep than I had. Then, of course, I crawled back into bed myself.

After a few more hours of sleep (and only because the girls wouldn’t go away) Shaun and I trudged out to where the presents were piled under the tree. Much to our delight, Santa truly spoiled us this year. It took us a while to open all of our fun gifts…not because we were that spoiled, but because Shaun wasn’t feeling well. Not to be too indelicate, but he had to make several mad dashes out of the room. We chose to believe that he was just giving us time to examine our new toys. Then we had a few hours to relax and do our own little thing. Poor Shaun took a nap. If you know Shaun at all he just doesn’t do that, so we know he was really, really feeling bad.

Then we headed over to the home of one of our good friends for a wonderful Christmas dinner. We enjoyed lots of good food, good conversation, and howling with the dog. (do you really want to know?) I guess most of our friends are about as normal as we are! For the first time ever, I was ready to go home and get to bed waaaay before Shaun was. I guess his long nap and just a bit of time really perked him up. It was near midnight when we finally got home and got the girls settled down.

To me, that’s what the whole Christmas Season is all about. To just enjoy slowing down and to spending extra time with family and friends. It’s a form of homemade magic. I can’t wait to do it again!