christmas

Trying to recover still from, not just Christmas, but the whole of Christmas vacation...

having the kids home = more laundry & more dishes & generally more messes to pick up ...& late movie nights = one tired mama

So because of all that, I am havin' a hard time organizing my thoughts on our wonderful Christmas Eve and Day.  Bear with me.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Jim had the day off.  YAY!

We started our day off with the Christmas Liturgy at church.  This was the first year we had a Liturgy other than the midnight service so we thought we'd try it.  IT.  WAS.  GREAT.  And if in coming years, there are morning Liturgys like this for Christmas, we are sooooo going to them.  It was so nice to start off the day with Church...we feel it really set the tone...a whole day earlier....which means it felt like Christmas for TWO days instead of one.  And I don't mean the present thing.  I mean really feeling the True Meaning of Christmas thing, our Christ's birth.

After Liturgy, we hung out at home, rested, made Santa's cookies, and then around 5-ish we were our at the ranch for dinner and Bussell gifts.  Traditionally on Christmas Eve, the Bussell Family has dinner at Panda Palace but this year, we didn't go to Chinese food...but we had it at the house.  Which for a couple, was a bit disappointing at first but it all worked out beautifully.  So, we had dinner, opened gifts, and had a very nice time hanging out with each other.

When we got home, we set out the cookies and milk for Santa and got the kids to bed.  Once the kids were asleep, which was surprisingly all of 10 minutes, we set out the Santa gifts and filled the stockings.  This is always one of my favorite things.  It's sneaky. And I luuuuuuv sneaky.  =)

CHRISTMAS DAY

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on my shoulder.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

"Mommy."

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

"Mommy."

Startled, I swing my arm as I roll over, almost hitting her.

"Mommy, I didn't look!  Can we get up???!!!!"

I roll over, look at the clock.

3:45am.

"Helena, get.  in.  bed.  It's waaaaay too early."

She crawls in bed with us and finally goes to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mommy!  Daddy!  It's Christmas!"

"Mommy!!!  Daddy!!!  It's Christmas!!!"

4:48am

Now, Basil & Julia are standing at our bed.

Lena pops up.

"It's Christmas !!!  It's Christmas!!!  It's Christmas!!!"

It's like Mexican Jumping beans.

In our room.

At 4:48.

A.M.

As Jim and I look at each other, shaking our heads, we sweetly giggle and get up...smiling.

We had such a lovely morning to ourselves, just the 5 of us.  It was quiet (sort of), sweet, and perfect.  We took our time opening gifts from one another.  And the best part was watching the kids as their gifts they gave to each other were being opened.  It was beautiful seeing how excited they were to give.  My favorite part.  Definitely.

At 7:30 the Bussell gang rolled in for breakfast.  We had Eggs Benedict atop of creamy, yummy, grits, croissants, SQ's sausage, orange juice, coffee, & tea.  DELISH!

After breakfast, we did nothing but hang.  The guys played Basil's new video game, Halo-Reach.  The girlies sat and talked.  Sooooo great.

Mom & Dad left around 11:00-ish to go rest.  Caleb & Jess left shortly after.  Around 1 I left for Mom & Dad's to help with Lunch/Dinner and everyone else showed up around 2.  After that we ate, drank (wassail, coffee, tea), and were merry.  =)