It is 8:45 at night, and Mat and I are barely awake. We are begging God that the children fall asleep in the next 15 minutes otherwise Santa's helpers might fall asleep before the presents reach the tree.
Before I tell you about our day, I want to show you our Christmas cards! Thank you to everyone who sent our family a card this year and a little note. We feel your prayers over us all the time.
We had a great Christmas eve. The kids were spazzing out every second of the day, and would spontaneously burst into tears due to adrenalin overload, but for the most part, we had a good day. We started the day with a cinnamon roll breakfast. Nothing can ever be that bad after you have cinnamon rolls.
Unless you accidentally take Arlington's puzzle apart without waiting for you to help her. That.....was a bad idea.
She did get over it - eventually - and wrote her letter to Santa. SO GLAD she decided that Christmas eve would be a good time to ask for something she has NEVER MENTIONED BEFORE. She told Mat and I she has been whispering it to Santa in her bedroom. I kindly reminded her that Santa is not GOD and cannot hear her whispering all the way from the north pole. And even if he could, it would take so long for the message to get to him that it was certainly too late. The girl asked for a Reindeer costume. Where in the world am I going to find that since Halloween was 2 months ago? Crazy pants is just going to have to be disappointed tomorrow. Ain't gonna happen.
Moving on.
After breakfast, we cleaned the house. And when I say we - I mean me. Mat went to get Dunkin donuts for us to have tomorrow for breakfast. Yeah, yeah.
Then we took the kids roller skating. Arlington had brought home a coupon from school that the kids could rollerskate for a $1 today, so we were game. The kids do love it. I forgot to take my camera, and I should have taken a video. They were hysterical. My kids have no coordination. At.all. Arlington likes to flail her arms all around and wonders why she fell 15 million times and is covered in bruises. Finley "ran" in her skates so fast that I had a hard time keeping up with her. Thank goodness for those little things that hold the kids up - she was crazy on those skates. At one point she got brave and decided she would just ditch the little "skater helper" and take off on her own. And she decided this WHILE she was skating on the rink - right in the middle. Weirdo.
After 3 hours of skating, we headed home. We spent the rest of the afternoon making cookies for Santa and homemade pasta sauce for our dinner. The kids had a great time making the cookies. They ate a fair amount of cookie dough and chocolate chips. Mat let them decorate them however they wanted and Finley used a whole bottle of sprinkles on one cookie when he wasn't watching. Tasty.
After dinner - which was actually quite painless - Mat took them to look at some local holiday lights and deliver some cookies to our neighbors. During this time is when I moved the presents from my secret hiding place in the locked attic to the basement so that Mat and I can get everything ready at a reasonable hour. The attic is on the same level as Arlington's room, so I knew I had to get them out of there before she went to sleep. Or pretended to go to sleep.
I found that hauling presents up and down three flights of stairs is for people who exercise. I should have traded places with Mat. I thought I was having a coronary at one point. Whose crazy idea was this? Oh yeah....
Once the kids returned, we played a game. Each year for Christmas eve, we get a new game to play with the kids. This is a tradition that Mat's family had, and I always thought it was a great one. This year's game was Quirkle cubes. Quirkle is one of the kid's favorite games, so when I saw this, I thought it would be perfect. It was fun, but it was hard to keep the kids focused. We were also watching a Christmas special at the same time. They cannot do more than one thing at a time.
By 8pm - well past their normal bedtime - we headed up for baths and bed. So far, I haven't seen a child appear out in the hall. I am hoping our very full, very busy day tired them out and they will be asleep soon.
Although, the lights just went out in our living room because we are running the space heater, the lights, the TV and the outside Christmas lights all at once. Power overload. Mat.not.happy. It is a little National Lampoon's Christmas vacation right here in the Pletcher house.
I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas. We are looking forward to seeing the kid's faces tomorrow when they appear at the bottom of the stairs and see what Santa brought them.
Let's just hope the lack of reindeer costume goes unnoticed.
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