The Christmas Report

CootieBoy came in our room in the middle of the night, causing Denis to go into CB’s room for sleep (CB is a bedhog and all but forces Denis out of the bed because CB insists on sleeping sideways). When CB woke up again around 7:30 a.m. he said he was hungry. “Do you know what today is?” I asked him.

“Gymnastics day?” he asked.

“No! It’s CHRISTMAS!”

“SANTA CLAUS DAY?” He immediately began scrambling out of the bed. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked.

“Probably in your bed.”

He went in his room, where Denis woke up and said, “Let’s wake up CootieGirl!”

What followed was an hour of decadence and wrapping paper. It was interesting to see how the kids reacted to gifts. CootieBoy began ripping open presents that had his name on them, but eventually he stopped and would begin to actually PLAY with the gifts as he opened them – to the exclusion of opening any other gifts. And he genuinely enjoyed each gift as he opened them. Plastic golf set? He insisted that Denis play a game with him (they played for about 15 minutes). New car? He wanted to roll it around the house. New tractor with animals? Zoom zoom zoom, cluck cluck cluck.

CootieGirl, on the other hand, was looking for a very specific gift. “I told Santa I wanted it,” she said a few times. And with each present, when it WASN’T that gift, you could see her deflate and lose interest a bit. And after a while I realized it wasn’t under the tree – and sure enough, when I ran upstairs I saw a bag of wrapped presents that we had forgotten to bring down last night. I promptly handed her the present from Santa and she was thrilled and excited when she opened it and found Island Princess Barbie inside. Clothes? Not thrilled. Barbie? Ecstatic. However, once all the presents were open she DID get into one of the outfits Marmie gave her and is still wearing it. So while she wasn’t enthused about OPENING the presents with clothes, she does LIKE the clothes.

The presents have been open for about 3 hours now, and they are still having a blast. The video game bike that we got was a huge hit with CootieGirl, who played 4-5 rounds. However, she is not the most coordinated of children, and had trouble with the actual bikeriding. CootieBoy – same thing. But they still are fascinated by it, and I think it’ll be a popular toy.

CootieBoy loves his train set that we got him – I helped him set it up and he spent a long time using the remote control to get the train to go around the track.

As for Denis and me, we really didn’t get to open our presents until the kids were done and off playing with their new things. I got some books, some DVDs (HIMYM Season Two! YAY!!!), a beautiful teapot and other things. The gift that made me laugh the most – a frame copy of a pledge I made when I was a little girl. It says the following:

I resolve to: study more in school, get better grades, help around the house, eat better foods, exercise, practice piano for two hours, be more polite, watch less t.v., do my chores, do less talking and do my bed. by…Jane

What’s sad? I still don’t do any of those things. Although I did make the dean’s list one semester in college. Only one semester though. And I do eat better foods now – well, sometimes. Either way, it made me laugh out loud to read that pledge. Thanks, Mom!

Denis raked in the cooking stuff – a dutch oven, new pyrex dishes, a knife sharpener, a couple cookbooks, to name a few things.

All in all a nice Christmas morning and proof of the blessings in our lives that we (and others) provided such a great variety of presents for the kids.