Christmas... American Style

Why "American Style" you ask? As Christian as I am, Christmas was certainly about the presents this year.
I blame tv. I blame the mass marketing of the stores. I blame the American-way.
Ok, not really. I blame myself. In years past we did a good job keeping in mind what Christmas was really all about. Somehow this year I let myself get caught up in how much the kids were getting, how much I was spending, and making sure they got everything on their lists.

Our rule about lists to Santa is that they can only request a few things and they must keep in mind that Santa may not bring everything. Well, Santa tried hard to make sure he brought everything! And wouldn't ya know, they still found stuff to whine about that they didn't get.

On Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed, husband and I sit down to wrap a few last minute gifts, get the stuff under the tree and go to bed. At about 11:30, with special Santa wrap and gifts sitting on the living room floor, Drew walks out and stands there staring at us. Luckily for us he doesn't wake up easily and it didn't really register to him what we were doing. He had to go potty and wanted a drink of water. Then Louisa comes out. I jump up to head off Louisa because she will figure it out and ask questions.

Whew... that crisis diverted.

We go to bed at a little after midnight and around 1:30 am both kids come into my room and wake me up. Excitedly Louisa says, "Mom! Guess what? Santa's been here! Can we go open our presents?!" Louisa is nine years old and yes, she can look at a clock and tell time. Yes she knows that if the clock says 1:30 and it is dark outside, that means 1:30 in the middle of the night and she shouldn't be waking me up. Apparently when Christmas presents are involved, that rule is out the window. I wasn't amused.

They got scolded and sent to bed. But I couldn't get back to sleep. I finally fell back into bed about 6:30 only to be woken up at 7:30 by not two, but three eager kids wanting to open their presents and how dare I sleep so late! (the third child was not Hunter, if you get my meaning!)

We open the million gifts they got, and there were a few under there for me as well.

Then it's breakfast time and nap time. After only two hours of sleep total, I needed a nap!

One of dh's soldiers came over for dinner. All in all it was a very nice relaxing Christmas. It did rain all day, but that's the south for ya, I guess! Better than snow, so no complaints here!