Christmas

Christmas is over, the tree is down, the lights are put away until next year. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief and sit down with a clear, not crazy head to compose this blog. I think the kids had a great Christmas. We keep it simple, but Santa made sure he brought at least 1 big gift for each of our older kids (he seemed to know that Emilia was content sucking on wrapping paper). Rachel got a camera and Carson got a t-ball set. The biggest, most impressive gift however was Lilly's. She got a guitar. It is the envy of all the other kids. It is not very often Lilly gets the best thing. Even if she does end up with something better than Rachel, it doesn't seems as good to her as what Rachel has, perhaps because she is so used to Rachel having the first, best things. But here, the guitar was the clear winner. Carson is at the perfect presents age because he thinks everything is amazing. His favorite gift was the gun Rachel got him from the dollar store. All my kids really are young enough that Santa can get away with doing Christmas pretty cheap. At one point Rachel and Lilly opened a box of art stuff at the same time and both exclaimed "Whoa!" I asked them what the present was and Rachel said "I don't know." Lilly also got an ice cream maker from her cousin Asher, which she loves. She was telling Elizabeth about it and said "This is the present I got from my special friend, Asher." Then she kept asking me if we could go get some "whupped cream" so we could use it.

We have a few developing Christmas traditions at our house. By Christmas Eve, I am tired and not at all interested in cooking a big meal, so we go out. Just us and the kids, and usually Uncle Cody. On the way home we look at Christmas lights. Then we set out cookies and a note for Santa, and it is off to bed (for the kids anyway). So far we have been lucky. Our kids sleep in Christmas morning. This year they did not even stir until almost 9am! Christmas morning we spend at out house opening and playing with presents. Then the real fun begins for the kids. We head over to Nona and Papa's house to play with cousins and open more presents. Then they play, play, play until late into the evening. Finally, we roll their over-sugared, over-stimulated bodies back home and try to put them to bed. The day after Christmas this year, I was anxious to get the house back in order, so I sent the kids to their rooms to get dressed and start cleaning. Then it occurred to me that post-Christmas is one of the very rare times we have nothing going on, and there is no rush to get back to life. I called the kids back up and said "I changed my mind. Go play with your new toys!" We had a wonderful, laid back December 26th. And the house even ended up clean by the end of the day. Good lesson for me.

I was spoiled this year. Shelby got me season tickets to Shakespeare Festival. I have to admit I suspected that was what I was getting. A receipt came in the mail a couple of weeks ago for the tickets. I opened the envelope just enough to realize that I may have spoiled a surprise. To cover up what I had done I threw the envelope away and pretty much talked myself into the fact that I was not getting tickets. The truth came out on Christmas Eve, and Shelby was pretty disappointed. I wasn't though! I am super excited. I also got a lot of chocolate and some stinky cheese. Spoiled spoiled spoiled!

Just a quick non-Rayl anecdote. We have Ian and Maya at our house today. Ian just asked if he could have a hot dog. I told him we didn't have any hot dogs. He said "How about ketchup?" "You want ketchup? What are you going to put it on?" He shrugged and said "I don't know." He settled on a carrot.

I dropped Emilia yesterday. See, I could keep this to myself. Nobody needs to know except those of us who were there, but I can't help myself. The whole thing was so surreal. I got her out of bed to nurse her one last time before I turned in for the night. I was just going to sit down when she curled up in a ball and rolled right out of my hands. She landed on her stomach/face, and seemed only slightly shaken. I have heard her cry harder after being mauled by Carson. Here is the interesting thing. I did not panic. Had the same thing happened when Rachel was a baby, I would have probably broken into guilty sobs. As it was, I just let out a surprised shriek, picked her up, and nursed her back to sleep. I am not sure if my calm manner is a result of having had so many little babies survive small trauma, or if my semi-conscious thought was, "Well, it isn't as bad as heart surgery, and she survived that!"