Actually,it was pretty successful. The quiet books were finished on Christmas eve, with time to spare. The wrapping was all done in advance. The house looked lovely.
Observe...
Edith got us off to a not-so-great start at 4am, when she woke up and refused to go back to sleep in her crib. She ended up sleeping in the bed with me and Martin, cuddled up in his arms. They looked adorable, but it didn't make for very restful sleep.
Dylan woke us all up at about 6:20am, his normal waking time. He followed the trail of pennies (Santa has holes in the pockets of his Santa suit, don't you know) down to his presents, and was SO excited!
The presents were kind of hard. We did the opening of pressies in three lots, stopping for breakfast and again for a little play with some of the new toys. But the kids were just so overstimulated and out of routine that they both spent large portions of the day being whiny little toe-rags. And Edith was tired and very needy. Let's just put it this way; we were happy to see them go to bed.
Christmas dinner was, by and large, a huge success. The turkey was cooked to perfection, the mashed potatoes were fluffy and creamy, the carrots and swede were beautifully cooked and lightly smashed, the sprouts were still slightly crunchy (nothing worse than over-cooked brussells sprouts), the roast potatoes were nothing short of perfection, the stuffing was home-made and delicious, and the parsnips, well, I burned them. But everything else was really good! Even Christine seemed pleased, and that's saying something. Even the Christmas pudding was deemed a triumph.
I guess cooking all those Thanksgiving dinners has been good practice for me.
The best gifts for the kids have been the sticky hands from Aunty Krystle and Uncle Blane and the dolly pushchair from Aunty Cathy. They do like those quiet books, and they were quite effective at church on Sunday. Martin's favorite gift was "Guitar Hero" for the Wii and mine is a toss up between my suede gloves and my new-to-me ipod.
So yeah, it was a good Christmas. Martin was off for 3 whole days, and he's off for 3 days again this weekend. Awesome! It's so wonderful to have him home. One of my favorite things in the whole world is listening to him give the kids their bath while I wash the dinner dishes. The kids seriously eat him up just like icecream. Days off are amazing. Something about having Martin home for baths makes me feel like everything is right with the world.
So here I am now, alone for the first time in 5 nights. It was pretty weird putting the kids to bed and coming downstairs to an empty house. I almost wanted to keep them up with me, because we were having such a good time. Almost...
So that's the update. It was a good Christmas. Because of the current economic situation, the budgets were smaller and the gifts fewer, but more thoughtfully chosen as a result. I liked it that way. It felt more special to receive the gifts that were given, and less greedy and guilty. More about friends and family.
I just wish I had been able to be with MY family. Sure do miss you guys!
2 comments:
We missed you guys too!
I completely agree Jamie about the more thoughtful gifts. Have to say we were going to do the whole laptop, tv thing this year but seeing you make quiet books for the kids stopped me in my tracks. I thought about getting things that would encourage us to share time with the kids instead of having them in front of a screen. We are definitely going to keep it small for as long as we can.
Glad you had a nice Christmas xxx
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