Our Christmas

Well, we did it.  It's now 12:34 a.m. so we have made it past Christmas.  Yay for us.  Yay for me.  There were a couple of points in the day where I floundered, but more on that later.

First, here's a pictorial guide to our day.

     In Christmases past I would wrap the gifts weeks ahead of time and then do the "extra stuff" (wink, wink .... for all of those Santa people out there) after everyone was in bed.

Last night, I was the first person who went to bed.

     This morning, I took a picture of the tree before I started:

So, do you notice anything about this tree?  Well, other than the fact that it's Christmas morning and there are only a few gifts under it?  If you look very closely you will notice that the bottom of the tree is not lit.  The very bottom.  It was.  Once upon a time.  About 3 weeks ago when we first put it up.  It also had quite a few ornaments there.  But since then a couple of things have happened.  Or should I say .... a couple of cats have happened.  Yes, the two cats in our house have decided to eat all of the wires and lights on the bottom of the tree, and break/eat the ornaments.  I kid you not.  Every day I would come home to find more chewed up wire all over the house and several light bulbs lying around the tree.

I finally decided to keep the tree lit all of the time. so that when, and if, they decided to start chewing again, they might feel a "jolt" of negativity.  A so-called "no-no" in the chewing department.

Now, I'm not sure if either of them felt the voltage of discipline, but I must say that once I kept the lights on, I found no more wires or bulbs and the tree has remained lit.  Well, from about a foot from the bottom on up.  And of course, I had to convince Rigby to stop lying in the middle of the tree branches.  

     Now, do you notice anything else about this tree and this picture?

No?  Then I'll give you another chance:

There it is!  Right under the tree.  The gifts.  Or rather, the packages.  See .... here's the deal:  I hate to gift wrap.  I mean it.  HATE it.   Loathe it.  Despise it.  

So this year, just a few days ago, I decided that we would try something new.  I'd put all of the packages under the tree.  Then, on Christmas morning, the kids would take turns opening one package at a time and then guess who the contents belong to.  If they guessed wrong, it would go straight back to Amazon (or whomever I bought it from).  OK, I wouldn't really do that, but it was fun to tell them I would.

An as an aside .... YAY FOR ON LINE SHOPPING!!!!!!

So that's what we did.  I didn't wrap a single gift.  I changed Christmas today.  This was completely different and was fun, too.

Here are the kids' stockings, after Santa visited in the wee hours of the morning:

And then one by one, they came down.  And looked incredibly bored ... until the last person cam down.  

Our old tradition was that all 6 would come down together, youngest to the oldest, and I would capture it on film.  This year it was different.  I let them come down stairs as they woke up, but they could not open any gifts until all 6 were present and accounted for:

     And after a short time, all six were there.  And then the package-opening began.  Note that it is Son #1's turn to open a gift.  He chose the biggest gift, and was a bit sad that it was not for him.
  

Here are a few shots of the morning:

After all of the gifts had been unwrapped, and the packaging placed in the appropriate recycling piles, we went to two movies.  The first was "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons".  It was a great movie.  It was, however, a movie that I should not have seen.  It was very, very hard on me.

     After that movie we went to see Daughter #1 and Son #3's choice of "The Spirit".  I was in hell for an hour and a half.  So was my mom.  But Son #3 did put up with Benjamin Buttons for me. so I figure it was the least I could do.

     And then we came home and cooked up (read:  mostly reheated)  to eat for the holiday.  This is Daughter #1, making some awesome crab dip.

Here is Son #1, getting ready to show me how to use the new electric wine opener he got me for Christmas (yes, he's an enabler):
Daughter #2, not working on anything other than drinking more wine:
Daughter #3, working on having fun on her computer:

And this is my famous mom:
Son #2 and his friend, B:

Son #3 in his favorite sweatshirt (PLEASE NOTE: It has the word STATE underneath the Oklahoma.  Very, very important piece of information):

So there you go.  That was our day.  My eyes are wanting to close now so I'm off to bed.

This was just a note to let you all know how dysfunctional we still are.

No wrapping paper on the gifts?!  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  I mean, really?!  

Six words:

Worst.  Mother.  of.  the.  Year.  Award.

OK, I hope you all had a blessed Christmas.

Lots of love,

Janine