Christmas Busyness

So, we did have a marvelous Christmas, all things considered.

I spent most of last Thursday doing laundry, organizing and packing.  We headed to my Mom’s house that night to spend the night and have our family Christmas on Christmas Eve.  At least…we eventually headed out.  Earlier that morning, I’d come into the kitchen to find the twins playing with my keys, which they had gotten out of my purse on the counter.  (They pulled over chairs to get it, which they aren’t allowed to do.)  Anyway, I took the keys and thought nothing of it.  Until hours later when I went into the garage and realized they had opened one side-door of the van.  Long story short, after we had loaded up all our stuff, all our kids, and ourselves…we realized the battery was dead.  Totally dead.  It took 30 minutes of charging from the Jeep to get it started.  Eric tried a number of different things.  I spent that time pleading with God that it would start so I didn’t have to unload my kids and find them dinner!  Thankfully, it did finally start and we made it to my mom’s without further incident!

Friday was Christmas Eve.  My family was all at my mom’s to celebrate.  It was, um, chaotic…to say the least! With 7 grandkids (8, 5, 2 (almost 3), 2 (barely), 2 (barely), 18 months, 2 months), there was lots of craziness while gifts were opened.  We let the kids go through all of theirs first, and they had a great time pulling off paper and opening boxes.  Then we sent them to play, nap or just hang out in the other room while the adults opened their gifts.  Really, we had a great time laughing and being together.  

After presents, we hung out for the day and had a Christmas dinner together before heading to our respective homes for the night.  We got home in time to put the kids to bed, and then I emptied and repacked our bags before heading to bed.  

Christmas morning, we had our first kid-oriented family Christmas.  It was so much fun to see the twins’ eyes light up when they saw the presents.  And they had a great time opening theirs and handing us ours.  Then was a mad rush to get us all ready and out the door.  But our goal was to be out by 9:00 a.m., and the van clock read 9:01 when we pulled out.  Woohoo!

We headed to the farm for the rest of the Christmas weekend.  We had a Hogue family Christmas first, then an extended Hogue gathering at midday, and another family gathering in the evening.  And the twins did not nap.  Thankfully, they were super-good the entire time.  We had no major meltdowns and they loved the presents at every turn.  And then we all collapsed into bed as soon as we could.

Sadly, the over-tired Alex didn’t sleep well that night…so Mommy and Daddy didn’t sleep well that night either.  And we definitely were starting to see some meltdowns on Sunday.  So naps were a huge priority.  And for the most part, they did really well even on Sunday.  

Sunday did have a few other little quirks.  The twins took my glasses off the dresser and I couldn’t find them.  We ended up having to leave for church without them (the glasses, not the twins ), though I did finally find them in the afternoon.  (They were on the floor.  I stepped on them.  They weren’t totally broken, but were definitely damaged since this was the second glasses-theft in as many weeks.  Poor little frames!)  We also had a marvelous time playing with all the toys that Grandma got them.  And after Grandpa and Alan came in from milking, we had supper, put on the twins’ jammies and headed home.

Thankfully, Eric took Monday off, so we had a day of recovery.  But the piles of stuff from 4 days of traveling, plus all the new Christmas “loot,” were totally overwhelming to me.  It took me three days, but I slowly started to get my house back.  And Wednesday, after having to put Alex in timeout multiple times for multiple days in a row because he just couldn’t keep his hands off the ornaments, the Christmas decorations all came down.

‘Cause you know what?  As much as I love Christmas stuff (and I do), it is so nice to have the house back to normal, too. And now that the huge pile of recyclable material has gone to the dumpsters (thanks, Eric!), we can call Christmas officially over.  And that means we are ready for the New Year!

And on that note…happy New Year to you all!

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