When's Christmas?

This is the question I hear now at least once a day. I am sure I will hear it for a while, and it doesn't really bother me.

We had a lovely Christmas. Right before Christmas, I got in a conundrum about the whole Santa Claus issue. The whole thing with Santa is that I do not want to lie to my children about whether he is real, but I also want them to play along. I don't want them ruining some other child's Christmas beliefs, and a whole year had passed and we had never said to Princess, "Santa is a lie", but we never played him up. This year, I did explain to her that sometimes people pretend to be Santa to re-enact the legend of Saint Nick. The day before, after at least 20 random strangers had asked her what Santa was bringing her, she told me, "Santa isn't real." Now my mom would not be too happy to hear that, as we had Santa when I grew up (but that's probably one reason why I don't want my child to believe in Him as real.) Anyhow, I told her that he was not real, but that we could pretend, and play like he was, so this allowed her to still use her imagination, which I did not want to kill and made me happier about the whole Santa situation as well.

The kids got too much, but we had a blast this year. I love my kids. I love seeing them play together and hug and kiss and love one another. I love the yelling, the screaming, the fighting, everything about it, even though it does occasionally get on my nerves - for the most part, I love all the sounds of childhood. I had a man tell me that he loved to hear children, and that's what made me think of this - I love hearing my kids sing, laugh, even cry. And for some reason, they think I am the greatest thing on earth, and that's a wonderful feeling.

Princess got a dollhouse from us, and accessories from my mom and sister. She also got a Fancy Nancy doll, FN change of clothes, and a computer from her grandparents. Pea got a toolset and a boat from us, tons of trucks, cars, and balls from grandmaw/papaw, and a educational train toyset from Nana. He also got Tadoodle markers from my sister. There was more - I'm just giving the highlights. :) We actually celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, and then went to the Harpers for Harper Christmas the rest of the day. We had Christmas breakfast at mom's and spend the day and night with her, Jenn, and Tanner, which was nice. And, it was nice to have Daniel at home for a little while.

Despite my encouragement not to buy too much, my mom and mother in law continue to compete to see who can give the most gifts. Actually, my mom stayed reasonable this year. Next year, maybe we will institute the three gifts from the three wise men rule. Since I do not foresee any changes in the future, I have started to embrace our culture's love of the excess, so I have lots of storage areas in the house now, but we continue to try to give our gently used treasures to those who actually need them.

Princess and I went to see Despereaux the Sat after Christmas and we loved it! It was only her second time to go to the movies.

There was more to the weekend, but that is actually not my story to tell, I just write this sentence for my own memory.

Monday, Daniel had to go back to work, but then he was off again Wed and Thurs for New Year's, so we went to the McWane Center for New Year's Eve. This was the second time in a week to go, and both times, we went altogether as a family. We had a blast both times. Then Daniel wanted to take us to Grump's Great Grill, which we all enjoyed. Later, we thought we would go to the Galleria to take the kids for a carousel ride for to celebrate New Year's with the kids, but we waited too late, so we went on New Year's Day.

(I don't have pictures from my mom's house - my sister has them on her camera.)