So this was Christmas

I'm a little behind in my blogging apparently since it's not Christmas at all but New Year's Eve. A week's hiatus is a little unusual for me but rest assured that the dearth of writing is only because we've had an influx of revelry. We have more things planned for today but for now I'll take a few minutes to tell you about Christmas.

A couple of weeks before Christmas Rachel's school had a book fair. She came home with the flyers, which conveniently got lost and forgotten about on my desk. I thought I'd won the battle of the book flyer but then Rachel came home from school with a "wish list" that they made in school. I was so mad—I think sending a flyer home is decent but sitting down with my child and writing out a wish list for them was a little ridiculous.

Her list was noble enough. She wanted a Star Wars book for herself and a ballet book for Miriam. Those were the only two things on her list.

Unfortunately the books cost more than we were willing to spend (even though I know a portion of the proceeds goes to the school) and I told Rachel we weren't going to participate in the book fair. She was crushed...but we went to the library and got out a bunch of Angelina Ballerina books and Star Wars books and read those together.

Reading the Star Wars books was torture. They are so poorly written—super, super lame.

I told Rachel that she'd have to learn to read on her own before we could get another Star Wars book out of the library. I don't care if she wants to read super lame, poorly written stories. I just can't do it.

"It's alright if you don't want to get a Star Wars book for me," she said when she came home from school one day. "I made a list for Santa at school and I put a Star Wars book on my list. That's the only thing I put on my list so he has to get it for me because there's nothing else I want."

Thanks a lot, school! First you help my child make a wish list for the book fair and then you teach her that she can make a wish list for Santa Claus. Sheesh! What's next—a birthday wish list?

Deep down inside I was hoping our children would never learn to wish for stuff...

Anyway, Rachel came home from school on Friday, December 21 with all of her school work for that week and within her papers were not one but two wish lists. Both of them listed one thing: a Star Wars book.






And it was totally fine that I hadn't gotten a Star Wars book for her because Santa was going to do that. Little does she know...I'm Santa. I showed Andrew her papers and gulped a little. We had only a few days left to prepare for Christmas and there was no way I was going to go to a store that close to Christmas. There was also no way I was getting her a super lame, poorly written, too expensive Star Wars book.

We hopped onto good ol' Amazon and ordered a Star Wars origami book for her. Amazon promised to have it delivered by Monday, December 24th and they made good on their promise (thank you to their employees and the DHL guys who delivered it so close to the holidays) and we were able to leave gleaming book under her stocking on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning Rachel shuffled into our bedroom oozing with melancholy.

"Merry Christmas," she sighed.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "It's Christmas! You're supposed to be excited."

"I was," she sighed. "But Santa didn't get me a Star Wars book and I'm just so disappointed. It's the only thing I asked for!"

"What do you mean he didn't get you a Star Wars book? How would you know? You didn't go through your stocking already, did you?"

"Yes, I did," she answered honestly (she was supposed to wait for everyone else). "But there's no Star Wars book."

"Are you sure?" I asked her.

"Yes," she moaned and then collapsed onto our bed.

We all went out to investigate our stockings together and Rachel sheepishly discovered that she'd opened Miriam's stocking instead of her own. It's not that their stockings aren't labeled "Rachel" and "Miriam" or anything (wait—they are).

Rachel was delighted with her Star Wars book and she and Daddy have already spent many happy minutes together figuring out the instructions.

Miriam was thrilled to open her stocking too (once we put it all back together from Rachel tearing it apart). Benjamin was also happy with his stocking even though I didn't finish (or even begin) his official stocking (he used one that Grandma Sharon crocheted this year). He only got a pair of socks and a board book but he was happy enough with that.

We had a lot of fun opening presents. Miriam would've been fine with just one present. Why do we get so many presents and open them all on one day? It's so overwhelming for children Maybe we should start doing a twelve days of Christmas thing and open presents over a few days instead of opening them all on Christmas morning. That way we can open something and enjoy it right away.

We got so many fun things this year. Auntie Sarah made all the kids a wall hanging of their names:

Benjamin chewed on wrapping paper to his heart's delight:

Rachel got the perfect present from Grandma Sharon—a Star Wars Lego set (which she was thrilled about even if she doesn't look it):

Grandma gave the girls each a princess set (from Jacob and Shayla's Disney-themed wedding lunch) and Benjamin enjoys those just as much as the girls:

He actually spent most of the day just chomping on things. He loved having all the paper and wrappings and tags around:

Miriam got new rainbow jammies. She loves them, but Grandpa called them Joseph jammies (like Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat) and that really offended her because she's not  Joseph!

Rachel got some wild thigh-high socks:

After doing some painting...

...we spent Christmas afternoon at the park. But you already knew that. We also got to skype with our far-away family: Emily and Morgan, Abra and Deklan, Piper & Malachi, Naanii and Bumpa and David and Patrick and Josie. It was fun to get to "see" some of our aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents!

For dinner we had waffles—with our fancy new waffle maker! Andrew's been saying for months that we need a nice waffle maker like his mom has and I've been telling him that "need" is a relative term. His parents gave us a nice waffle maker for Christmas so Andrew was very excited to use it (and I was excited that he wanted to make dinner).

After dinner we put on the nativity again because Miriam decided that she needed a turn to play Mary.

No one minded putting on the nativity again—it was a lovely way to end our Christmas day. This time Grandma played many of the supporting roles (of Joseph and Shepherd and Wiseman).

Benjamin once again played the part of Baby Jesus:

My mom sent a few washcloth puppets for the kids and we discovered that Benjamin liked them a whole lot, which prompted a quick search through the toy box to find every single puppet we own. Some of the puppets (and Miriam's new dog, Frenchy (from Fancy Nancy)) visited the manger along with the shepherds.

Rachel played the part of the angel this time and said all of her lines beautifully:

After we'd finished reading and acting out the account of the Christmas story, Andrew insisted on reading something out for our official scripture study since Christmas was "over." So we had scriptures and prayer together and then Grandpa read The Nutcracker (or at least a condensed version of it) to the girls before we shipped them off to bed.