Christmas Eve

In my opinion, Christmas Eve arrived in the blink of an eye this year. I was so excited for this year. I had put a lot of thought into the gifts that I got for the kiddos and what they really needed or wanted as opposed to what would just be fillers. It was fun.

In the past, Christmas Eve has been a series of house hopping and eating eating eating. This year we took it a little bit slower.

I finally finished the last of my orders Christmas Eve morning. Yes, I know... I don't need to hear it. We then hopped on into the car to deliver some gifts to friends. The kiddos were thrilled when we got to stop and get doughnuts as a treat! What a great day to get out. The traffic was terrible, the stores were packed to the brim and my house had exploded into a mess of fabric, sewing notions and wrapping paper!

In the afternoon, we went over to my parents house for Christmas Eve dinner and our annual present opening. Dinner was fabulous. Nena is my little carnivore and ate so much spiral cut ham that I thought that she might pop. She loves it though and waits all season long for the ham dinner. What a strange little cookie.

This year, we decided to draw names for gift giving. This is the first year that we have done this and it worked out fairly well. My cute sister got my name and gave me the world's greatest gift: a certificate for a mani/pedi! Woo Hoo! Now I can get rid of the black Halloween polish on my toenails (ok, I could have done that 8 weeks ago but, I only seem to think about it when I am in the shower, church or other moments where breaking out the nail polish isn't the greatest idea.)

The kiddos were spoiled rotten. They were not in the name draw so, everyone bought for them. Bear was shocked to receive a cute and (here comes the great part) indestructable camera. Oh, he died over that one! Nena's favorites were a clock radio and a baking outfit! She was so excited! Toad got a bucket of blocks and the night was over for him. He loved loved loved it.

My parents spoiled me with a gorgeous necklace! They always look for such interesting and unusual gifts.

My parents are hard ones to shop for so, we decided to go in together and get them a subscription to Netflix. They are always saying that they don't need anything. However, everyone loves movies so, we continued with our tradition of getting them a years worth of movies.









One of my favorite parts of the evening was that Nena was so worried about missing the arrival of Santa. Eight O'Clock was approaching rapidly and so was her anxiety. She had a hard time sitting still. I kept telling her that Jingles, our little house elf, would tell Santa that we were at grandpa's house and that we would be ok. She was not convinced.

In a moment of brilliance, my dad told my brother to go in the other room and to be jingles. Well, obviously my brother did not understand the point and when my dad called and put my brother on speaker phone, Dusty answered in his deep gruff voice (no attempt at disguising his voice,) "Hi, this is Jingles." My dad sat trying to talk to "Jingles." Nena was not convinced and glanced over to the phone, "If you are talking to Jingles," she questioned, "How come Dusty's name is on the caller id?" They were caught.

So, in a second moment of brilliance, I called a friend and explained the situation. I asked for them to call and in a DISGUISED voice tell Nena that they were Jingles and to not worry, Santa would wait for them. I had just enough time to change my ring tone to "Here Comes Santa Clause" and the phone rang. Nena's eyes went to the size of dinner plates as she heard the unusual ring. She answered with speaker phone. The cutest little voice on the other side told her that everything was going to be ok. He would tell Santa that we were on our way home and that he would wait for us.

As she got off the phone, her voice got loud and shrill as she shreked, "I JUST TALKED TO JINGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Crisis averted.

In short, as soon as we walked in the door that evening, the kiddos were up into bed faster than they I have ever seen them do it before. It is now another treasured memory!