Christmas Day

Unsurprisingly, Eva and I were the first ones up on Christmas morning. We have a tradition of waiting until everyone is gathered to look through our stockings, and she was having a hard time containing her excitement.

We got the cinnamon rolls out to finish rising and made hot punch. After about an hour, I let her wake everyone else up.


I love watching the kids go through their stockings and the things Santa brought. It's always been my favorite part of Christmas day!

After stockings, we took a break for breakfast. I made a decision this year: I am not making cinnamon rolls and caramel-pecan rolls next Christmas.

It's our traditional holiday breakfast, but nobody even seemed to care that much, and it's a lot of work, dang it! Who knows, maybe I'll buy Einstein's bagels next year...

Then we got down to the business of opening presents. I was raised by a mother who has always wrapped gifts with style. I was her #1 wrapping assistant, so I have carried on the torch of wrapping as prettily as reasonably possible.

So imagine my delight when I turned over a gift that she sent and saw this! Aha! So this happens to her occasionally, too!

And my horrified laughter when I saw the gift that Lucas wrapped for Eva. All I can say is, wow. I cannot believe a child of mine produced such a package. I think he's going to need some further instruction...

Max was pretty chill in his new jammies. I think he got 3 iTunes gift cards (can you believe I've never had one?) -- they're quite popular with my boys.

Marc surprised me by giving me a fancy electric wheat grinder! I couldn't really think of anything else I wanted, so I told everyone who asked that I wanted money towards a grinder. He went ahead and got one, and one with adjustable texture control, to boot.

I also got three cookbooks: Pioneer Woman from Jill, and two new bread cookbooks from Marc and Michelle. Between the grinder and the bread books, Lucas was practically rubbing his hands together in anticipation of much bread!

As soon as Eva found the Hello Kitty socks in her stocking, she had to take off her footie jammies and wear the socks. Then she opened these ruffly legwarmers from Aunt Michelle. She opened the red shoes from my mom and had to add them to the ensemble.

When she got to the tutu I made as a last-minute gift and the sparkly pink bracelets from my mom, she had completed her Christmas outfit and declared herself a true ballerina princess.

In addition to giving Lucas money towards his ipod, Max made him this dessert rain check. He told me about his plan, and I warned him that it is awfully hard to follow through on those monthly gifts (sorry, Timm! sorry, Marc! sorry, Jill!). I suggested that maybe he should offer to make Lucas his favorite dessert -- once. He let himself be talked down to 6. Perhaps a punch card is the key to success?

The only thing Lucas really wanted was money to put towards the purchase of an iPod Touch. I guess playing with mine and Marc's in Paris and seeing his cousin Kristen's put the idea into his head, and he would not be dissuaded, even with threats of hardly any presents.

He made out like a bandit. He got money from us, my parents, Marc's parents, Marc's dad, Aunt Michelle, and Max. He had more than enough and he went and bought his iPod today. Plus, he got a decent amount of other gifts as well, thanks to Santa and my mom.

Max also wanted money towards a new iPod, but he told us that a little late in the game, so he got less money and more other gifts: two cookbooks (Wagamama and I Love Macarons), several sweaters, new jammies, t-shirts, a watch, a couple of movies, and Borders and iTunes gift cards.

Eva got 6 new Land Before Time movies (Marc was amazed that there were that many she didn't already own), a plethora of Littlest Pet Shop animals, jammies, several sparkly items of clothing from my mom, a dinosaur book, a dog book, a FurReal newborn pug, and a Wii game (Paws & Claws Pet Resort).

Marc got a Blurb gift certificate, a Banana Republic gift certificate, the third season of Doctor Who on DVD, a way cool desk calendar of Eames chairs, a couple of ties, See's candy, iTunes cards.

When all the gifts were opened, we watched the finale of So You Think You Can Dance (we recorded all of them while we were away, and have been watching an episode or two every night, oh the joy!). That is some seriously good TV. We loved Russell, but we loved Jakob, too, and thought that maybe he should have won.

I rolled and formed the roll dough and set them out to rise, and then I was feeling a little... blah. I took a nap, then got up and finished making dinner.

Here it is, the dish that nearly ruined Christmas...

It may have been the let-down of all the festivities being over. It may have been the less than enthusiastic response to dinner. Or the fact that I had forgotten to take my Lexapro for the last three days may have been a factor...

In any case, I pulled out of it. The festivities aren't really over, after all. The kids are still home for awhile yet. Many games will be played, a new puzzle put together. We have plans of fondue and extended family for New Year's Eve.

Still, I can't quite believe that Christmas is really over.