'Twas 10 Days after Christmas

We had a really wonderful Christmas.  Dom, Will, and Molly participated in our church's Christmas pageant for the first time.  It is not a big production by any means.  The one practice took place Christmas Eve morning.  Molly was a sheep and went with the method form of acting.  She remained a sheep for the two hours of the practice and continued for the better part of the day.  Dom was a shepherd which he took quite seriously.  And William played a Wise Man.  I'm not sure which one, but he walked down the aisle with great solemnity.  The entire presentation took less than 5 minutes.  Which, frankly, was the perfect amount of time for our little lamb to be 'on stage'. 

Prior to their practice, the three eldest walked around the neighborhood delivering our Christmas Cookies.  They came up with three jobs to do at each house so that the deliveries could be as fair as possible.  One carried the cookies, one delivered the card, and one rang the doorbell.  This worked pretty well.  I'm not entirely sure what we will do in a couple of years when John gets involved...

After Christmas Eve Mass, we returned home and attempted to take pictures of the kids in their Christmas finest.  Here is what I have discovered after years of taking pictures of multiple kids...you will never get a good picture of all of them.  However, if you let them hug or run or do something that seems like a game (and with our crew...just about anything is a game), the smiles are authentic and even if someone (Molly) does not look at the camera, the pictures turn out quite nicely.  At least I think so.

After pictures, we all changed into jammies and sat down to our Christmas Eve meal.  I have started the tradition of making Rouladen for Christmas Eve.  Growing up, my mom would make this meal for our priests right before Christmas (though she would also make other meals...this was just my favorite).   The kids may come to like it one day, but this particular day was not that day.  Foreseeing this, I provided a more child friendly option: ham. And all was calm with our meal.  The calmness lasted until the wrestling match started in the Florida Room:

Once Eric called uncle...
We put out a few gifts and laid out milk and cookies for Santa.  Then Eric read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and all went to bed. 

The next morning, I woke up earlier than anyone.  I had the thought as I laid there that when I was a kid, I would wake up and lay in anticipation until the rest of the house awoke excited to see what Santa had brought.  This Christmas, I woke up and lay in anticipation to hear the excitement when the kids saw the gifts under the tree.  They did not disappoint.  I heard their door open and just the single exclamation: "Wow!".  As much as I enjoyed Christmas morning as a kid, I enjoy it 10 times more now. 

As we had nowhere to be, we took our time opening gifts with plenty of breaks for the kids to play with new toys or read books.  There were a few big packages...but, they were misleading.  One was a giant yellow ball (the sun) and a few other balls we already owned.  It was the planet toys Will had requested.  Another (my personal favorite), was a giant box addressed to Molly and her brothers.  I have wanted for a while to wrap a small gift in increasing sized boxes and this year I had the perfect opportunity.  Will had picked out books for his siblings...and promptly told them about it.  They laughed and giggled all the way through the unwrapping and were delighted with their books at the end.  Will has mentioned several times how fun it was to unwrap a present like that...I may have started a new tradition.

 The final gift and the contents of the final gift. 

And we've been celebrating ever since.