Christmas day, the one day a year I am afraid my children might wake up before I do. That did not happen this year, thank goodness! I have too much to do before they can come down stairs. First and foremost, I must have my face and hair picture ready. Once that is done, I have a cup of coffee, and then I finish up the Christmas morning sausage rolls. I was almost done with the sausage rolls, when I heard something upstairs, and I thought to myself, "Oh no! I'm not done yet!" I ran upstairs to see who was away and it was only R, the big daddy of our house guest, who never wakes up early. I think he just wanted to be picture ready too; I can't fault him for that. Once he realized I was the only person awake, he headed back to bed, making sure to lay very still as not to mess up his freshly combed hair. J
Shortly after R went back to bed I heard someone else. Again, I run upstairs to check it out and it was the biggest of the kids. Boy 1! I told him to go back to bed, but he informed me he had been awake for over and hour and was trying to be as patience as he could. I invited him downstairs with me to finish cooking before we woke everyone else, BUT he had to promise not to look in the direction of the living room. You see Santa still visits our house, and he never wraps the one gift he leaves our children. (Yes, that is right, Santa leaves only one gift and he fills our stockings. He leaves the one gift our children ask for - the rest of the credit goes to Mom and Dad, thank you very much.) Anyway, Boy 1 said he could not promise that, he said he would be too tempted to look in the living room. That made me proud....at least we are raising an honest boy! So he decided to watch me from the stairs.
Just as I put the sausage rolls in the oven, I let Boy 1 wake his siblings and our guest. In a matter of minutes they were all waiting for us on the stairs.
Don't they all look cute in their matching PJ's? Every Christmas Eve night we open 2 gifts, one is ALWAYS PJ's and the other is a gift from a sibling. The adults get matching PJ's as well....
Once we finished torturing them with pictures, the race was on!
Everyone got what they wanted from Santa!!
This year some of my children were very specific on what they wanted. Boy 3 ask not only for choo-choo trains, but for specific ones, James, Duck, Henry and Gordon. Boy 2 was a little easier; he wanted a gumball machine with gumballs. Girl requested “a digital camera like Mommy's, but in blue". She was more specific because last year when she ask for one, Santa brought her one, but it was a "kid" camera & broke within a few weeks. Santa could not find blue so she got silver. Boys 1 begged for an IPod nano, since he lost his last one and Mom and Dad refused to buy him another. E & J both got a Nintendo DS.
A few other things worth mentioning.....
***Since we take turns opening gifts, it took us over 2.5 hours to open gifts. (There were 10 of us)
***Boy 3 was very patience while opening gifts, he just kept asking, “my turn?” after each person opened a gift
***Girl hasn’t stopped taking pictures since she got her camera
***Boy 1 hasn’t removed the ear buds from his ears since Christmas morning
***Boy 2’s teeth are going to rot out of his head because he has chewed so much bubble gum
***R wasn't too sure what to think of the fish he received for a gift...
***Hubby always buys a slinky little pair of undies for me each Christmas (maybe a little too much information for you readers out there...sorry), but this year, he was a little confused. He bought BOY UNDERWARE for me! When I pulled them out I was looking at the backside, and then to my surprise when I turned them around there was a pouch for a "package" that I do not have!
Merry Christmas from our house to yours!