Christmas Eve was different this year. I had to work, and I actually encountered some client problems that had to be dealt with. After those things were taken care of, I was able to be home and put work away while I made a Gingerbread House with Ian, bake a Gingerbread cake, and wrap the last of the gifts for my parents. We left for their house around 5pm, and Ian was a ball of excitement as soon as he hit the door, even without the usual whirlwind of his 5 cousins (they are up in Boston this year). We let him open 1 gift in hopes it would calm him down, but the effect of tranquility was not quite achieved. We were able to eat through, and we had a wonderful spiral ham, pasta salad, spinach and crab pastry, and brussel sprouts. We set up the candles for luminaria, and Ian was allowed to light them this year which was pretty exciting for him. After that we sat around and had champagne while we opened gifts, and then we walked around the neighborhood to look at all the lights and to mingle with the neighborhood. There were piles of people walking around and everyone was so happy! It was a fantastic night.
When we got home Ian and Roo got right into bed. Roo fell right to sleep, and Ian fell asleep shortly after that. Sean and I put the gifts under the tree, wrote the "thank you letter" from Santa for the cookies and carrots which I taped to the fireplace, and then we put the stockings out. We lasted about 15 minutes after that, and then it was off to bed for us!
I woke up at 5:30am, but didn't want to get out of bed. I managed to make it until 6:30am, and then I decided to get up and make coffee. Sean woke up too, so we went to the kitchen to start the Cinnamon buns and winter blend coffee.
As soon as I walked down the hallway I knew something was amiss. When I turned the corner to the living room I started to laugh, because I knew Ian had been up and had been out to see what Santa had left for us. The gifts were scattered, but funniest of all was the removal of Santa's letter. Ian can't even read, but somehow he knew what that letter was all about, LOL!
Sean and I decided to open our stockings before the kids woke up, so we did that quickly. That was funny too, because Ian had obviously been in the stockings as well; there were 2 things of candy that had been in my stocking that "mysteriously" ended up in his
We had to wake the kids up at 7:30am. I'm assuming Ian was still tired after his night of foraging! He had his impish grin going when he came down the hall, but he was excited to open everything. He was appropriately excited about all of his gifts, and was SUPER excited when Daddy pulled out the gift from behind the couch, which ended up being a Wii. *sigh* Roo got into ripping the paper off her things, but the whole experience was a bit beyond her.
After a relaxing morning, we went over the my mother-in-laws house. It was different this year because there were a LOT more people there and it wasn't as family focused. Sean had a hard time with it, but the kids had a great time. I did too, although I missed the special 'alone time' we usually have with them.
We left there around 5pm, and from there we went to Sean's dad's. He was at his girlfriends, so we had to travel about 30 minutes to her house. The kids had a blast, and they each got more than enough gifts, including Zhu-Zhu pets, LOL! They were both a bit wild though, so I knew that they were getting pretty tired. We stayed for a little over 2 hours, and we left (without the Chihuahua they wanted to give us!), and both of the kiddos passed out in about 4 minutes.
Yesterday Roo slept until 8am, and Ian was asleep until 9:30am! My parents came over to visit, and then we went to Ikea to look for something I wanted, and then we hit BJs and then the mall. The mall was terrifying with all the people though, so we picked up dinner and came home to play some of Ian's games. After that the kids were tucked in bed, and Sean and I watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until bed.
It was a wonderful way to spend the holiday. I couldn't have asked for better!
