Merry Christmas!

What a great Christmas. It was great because I survived and it was great because the boys enjoyed themselves.

Two days before Christmas we decorated homemade Gingerbread houses. I used my mom's old recipes and forms from the 70's. She made a house every Christmas along with dozens of different kinds of Christmas cookies. I'm not THAT ambitious but for the first time in my life I took on the task of making a gingerbread house. It turned out better than I imagined. Brett and the boys decorated one and I decorated the other.

Although my favorite "gingerbread" house was the one I saw in Smiley's class last week. When the teacher said it was time to clean up, one of the boys began dumping marshmallows and candy onto his plate...

On Christmas Eve at the family dinner I made the mistake of setting my camera down for a moment and walking away. My brother-in-law took advantage of the opportunity to photograph his and his brothers' bald spots...

On Christmas morning Wannabe woke Sheriff up at 4:00 a.m. and they didn't get back to sleep. Thankfully, they did not wake me up at that time.

Smiley LOOKED like he woke up at 4:00 a.m. (and acted like it)

But in reality he only cried twice during the day. Now THAT'S a Christmas miracle. I asked for no arguing on Christmas Day but that was rather unrealistic.

I didn't get that gift of course. But it was so much fun watching them open presents and see their expressions when they got what was on their lists.

I didn't really have a list for Christmas. Perhaps I should have...

To my sister I say... well done.

April definitely belongs on Santa's naughty list for the trick she pulled this year with the sock monkeys. She figured that by giving the sock monkeys to my kids I can't give them back to her. Her stocking is definitely going to be filled with coal next Christmas.

Then there were the gifts from her cruise to Mexico...

Brett played his shell whistle all day. Serenity now!

And the shell purse??? Even with my bad taste in clothes I still don't have anything to go with it.

Next time I think twice about buying her a monkey that sings Jingle Bells - I won't.

As I stood at the sink last night washing the dishes, Wannabe said to me, "mom, you've been busy all day." It was true. Christmas Day is a very busy day making a huge breakfast for the family, heading over to Grandma's house then great-grandma's house and then hurrying back home to begin on the dinner. I clean up the morning disaster before Grandma and Grandpa arrive and finish off the dinner preparations. We have dinner and then the post-dinner clean-up begins. I wonder if my mom was this busy on Christmas day and I never noticed? But I love spending time with family and I love the way we spend Christmas - it is the stuff tradition is made of. I'll recover later. :)