Kids and Christmas

Christmas 2008 has come and gone and the tell-tale signs are all over my apartment in the form of masses and masses of new toys, coloring books, crayons, and all the leftover bits of packaging - including hundreds of those annoying twisty-ties that make removing Barbie from her box just about impossible. I think the toy industry is trying to extend the holidays by making it take a minimum of three hours just to remove one item from its package.

I've always loved Christmas best of all the holidays. Actually, I say that for every holiday. Last month, Thanksgiving was the holiday I loved best of all the holidays. The month before that, Halloween was the best holiday of all the holidays.... (My birthday is coming soon and I think that is my REAL favorite)

But Christmas just seems like the best holiday right now. And having kids and celebrating Christmas is the best part of all. Yes, it got a little annoying these last few months when Gracie asked on a minutely basis, "Can I have {insert whatever is being advertised on the TV} for Christmas?" But I got her back these last few weeks by hanging "Santa is watching you so you better be a good girl," over her head.

Santa/Good behavior blackmail is awesome.

There is nothing quite like the excitement of Christmas morning, when all the presents come unwrapped. The girls had the best time opening their presents. Even underwear is the best present ever when it comes wrapped in snowman covered wrapping paper.

It seems to me like the older generations in my family - the ones whose kids are now grown - think it is really funny to give my girls the loudest, most obnoxious singing toys ever created. What's up with that? Will and I have our own personal No Noisy Toy policy, but that doesn't extend to gifts that the girls receive from other people.

My family must be trying to get me back for something - though I'm not sure what about - as we now have several new noisy toy additions to our teeny tiny apartment, including a keyboard that meows all of its songs (thanks for that, Mom) and a bilingual cheerleader doll whose high pitched cheers pierce my brain - and this one is Annelie's favorite, so I'm hearing Spanish cheers all day long... and we don't even speak Spanish.


The best present I got was a two-part present - The five days of kid-free hubby time for our road trip to Memphis (which was awesome) and now, the five days that my mom is keeping Gracie with her in Austin until New Years. Merry Christmas to me!

I haven't had only one child at a time to look after since we moved away from my family 6 months ago, and I am loving it. Annelie loves being an only child too, but her favorite part of the day is calling Gracie on the phone. They spend about 8 minutes just saying, "blaaaah" to each other and laughing their heads off.

So our holidays are over now and they were fab. I hope you all had a LOVELY time as well!

xoxo,