Christmas: The 2010 version.

Christmas: The 2010 Version is one that will go down…well, not quite in infamy, but at least in family lore as one for the books. It was the first Christmas morning I didn’t spend with my girls. In fact, it’s the first Christmas I’ve ever woken up alone. It was the Christmas season that started with both girls having the 24-hour stomach flu (poor washing machine), and ended with Gracie getting the full-blown flu. It was the Christmas that my baby sister spent packing to move out of our parents’ house. It was also the Christmas with two visits from Santa, and the one in which I kept answering questions with, “Maybe there’s a puppy under the tree!” (There wasn’t.)(But I still thought it was hysterical. Moreso than the children did.)(Ahem.) It was lovely. It was sad. It was cozy and bright once everyone came home. It was exhausting. And it ended like every other Christmas: with me wishing a magical fairy would show up to pack up all the decorations with a swish of her wand.

One of my favorite days from the past week (two weeks?) was on the 23^rd. I watched the girls for their dad while he popped into work for the day. I finished the very. last. round. (for the love of all that’s holy!) of baking (raspberry thumbprint cookies, if you’re wondering) with the help of the girls. Then I got my little assembly line of free workers all set up and we made up plates of rice krispie treats, fudge, and bunch of cookies (ginger snaps, Mayan hotties, chocolate peppermint drops, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, candy cane sugar cookies, hermits…), wrapped them, and delivered them to the neighbors. The girls loved that part the best. I was careful to keep Gracie away from everyone and I practically bathed her in hand sanitizer throughout the morning. I think she was happy that I let her off the couch! But I know she wasn’t feeling her best because she was just as happy to return to her Couch of Solitary Confinement when we got home. Then we settled in for a Christmas movie marathon and whiled away the hours until it was time to go back to their dad’s house.

Christmas Eve was a little tough without the girls was tough, but with all the crisistating I did, and all the phone calls from my friends, it was probably best that I wasn’t chasing little people around the house.

Christmas Day was our Christmas “Eve” – Gracie and Bee cleverly wrote Santa a few weeks ago and “volunteered” to be the last stop on his long journey. Santa would stop at our house on Christmas night as he headed back to the North Pole. That way we could still wake up to presents and enjoy the magic! We got to enjoy our Christmas Eve traditions, too. After the girls ran around for the afternoon and I napped on the couch in front of a roaring fire, we opened gifts from the family. We always did this when I was younger and I liked that it gave us time to enjoy presents from each other and it helped us keep straight what was from whom. I am so glad I did – there were several presents that went over big time with the girls and they played with them all night (at least until I was mean enough to make them go to bed). Their favorite was, hands down, the school set from Grandma. It will only be a matter of time before they take someone’s eye out with the pointer, and I’m already tired of the bell, and then there was the matter of Gracie writing on the dry erase board with a Sharpie (rubbing alcohol takes it off – crisis averted!), but they played with it for hours. Gracie has asked six times if we can use the science experiment kit she got from Auntie Kim, and both girls played with Bee’s Barbie apartment from Auntie Kim (Barbies = school students, FTW!); extravagant Lego kits from Grandpa elicited squeals of joy; I cannot wait to play with my Jeopardy wii game from Mike and my Price is Right wii game from my brother (silly Santa trumped me with Just Dance 2; our wii time has been devoted solely to Walking Like An Egyptian); I’ve devoured the first half of the Hunger Games book from my sister Rhi and already ordered the other two – we must like each other an awful lot to produce such a bounty of gifts.

Christmas morning was…picturesque. (Or as close as one can get when one child has the flu and is consequently a bit tired and whiney.) The girls woke up full of excitement that Santa had arrived. The fire was lit (and so was the entire chimney at one point. Le sigh.). Presents were opened and cinnamon rolls were baked and then inhaled. This was The Year of the Lego, Gracie is delighted to inform you. Bee was practically bathed in Barbies, with some Polly Pockets and accessories for their (new) My Generation Dolls thrown in. Gracie was thrilled to receive a bunch of new Junie B. Jones and Flat Stanley books and Bee received a bunch of Berenstein Bears books (which, to my delight, she still calls “Fancy Bears” because the girl can’t hear straight). There were new clothes and gloves and nail polish and a grown-up jewelry box for Gracie and Lost Seasons 4-6 for Mom. Oh – and giant pillow pets for the girls. Seriously. I am now calling them “mattress pets” because the giraffe and tiger Bee and Gracie found from Santa are practically life-size.

See? It was a lovely day full of sparkles and Christmas magic once everyone came back where they belonged. My floor might be covered with tiny bits of wrapping paper still, and at some point I am going to give up on that fairy and put all the millions of bloody ornaments and decorations away all by myself….but I still can’t wait for next year.

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