So, Christmas, in short: excellent!
We had my parents over on Christmas Eve for dinner -- just soup and sandwiches, but it was nice to sit and talk, and the kids enjoyed their company. They left as we were getting ready to put Alex to bed, and we told Penny she wasn't allowed to wake us up until 7.
Naturally, I woke up myself at 5:30 or so and my brain immediately started up so I couldn't go back to sleep, but it was nice to snuggle in the warm bed for a while, too. Penny came in promptly at 7, so we got up and picked up Alex and headed down the stairs to see if Santa had come...
Penny was thrilled with the guitar that Santa brought her, which was nice, because we always seem to guess wrong with her bigger gifts. And of course, there were stockings. Penny and Alex dove right into those without much prompting.
And surprisingly, Santa had brought stockings for Matt and I, too! I really got Matt with that one. He'd been a little sad a few days earlier that I hadn't gotten stockings for us, and I'd told him that I hadn't realized he'd wanted stockings for the adults, too, and it was kind of late, so maybe next year... and then after work on Christmas Eve, while he and Penny were at the movies, I went out and got stockings for us, put them together, and hid them. I should've put the nails in the wall for them at the same time, but I forgot -- I ended up putting them in that evening, while Matt was taking his shower. He heard the hammering, and I really thought the jig was up, but managed to convince him he must have been hearing something from outside. The stocking contents weren't all that thrilling (there wasn't much left in the stores on Christmas Eve) but I felt pretty good at having surprised him with their existence.
After the stockings, Penny played Santa and divvied up the pile under the tree, and we started opening. Alex got overwhelmed after the first few, and it wound up taking him until the 26th to open all his gifts, but there's nothing wrong with stretching out the fun, either.
The kids got tons of clothes and toys, and everyone got at least one thing they were over the moon about, so that was great. Penny gave Matt and I a little book that she'd written and illustrated at school, complete with a CD of her reading it aloud. (It was a story about how our house was crazy messy until a Christmas elf came and cleaned it up, after which we thanked him with some cookies.)
Then we played and cleaned up a little and got dressed and played some more and ate lunch and Alex had a nap, and then we went down to my parents' house.
We opened more presents, of course, and giggled over how my mom and Samantha apparently did their shopping out of the same catalog, and admired the beautiful bracelets Sam had made for Penny and the fun toys the kids got, and the picture things I'd made for my parents.
After we'd opened all the gifts, we had dinner, of course. Mom had waffled between turkey and ham for a couple of weeks, but finally settled on the ham. (She'll serve the turkey for New Year's, she says.)
We didn't get home until quite late, but all in all, the kids were very good, and everyone had a great time. Yay, Christmas!
We wound up back at my parents' the next day for a bit, since we'd forgotten some things at their house, but otherwise had a fairly slow and quiet weekend. The kids played with their new toys and read their new books, and Matt and I did much the same.
We're back to work this week, of course, though school is still out, so Penny's at the daycare. I'm hoping/planning to take Thursday off as well as Friday, so at least it's a short week. We don't actually have any plans for New Year's Eve -- it's hard to party with little kids in tow. Or New Year's Day, either -- we were going to have dinner with my family, but that's been moved back to Sunday. I'm trying to think of something we can all do together, or that Penny and I could do, at least (since she and Matt had some special time together on Christmas Eve) but I'm pretty much coming up blank. So I expect the day will just be spent taking down the Christmas decorations and packing them away for another year.
Saturday we're having lunch with Chuck and Anita, though, so that should be fun; and Sunday Matt is taking Penny to see a basketball game, after which we're doing the family New Year's dinner, which I'm also looking forward to.
And then the holidays will be over, and we'll be back to normalcy. I am both sad and relieved that the holidays are already almost over. But more sad than relieved. It's been a really good holiday season, this year.
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