Christmas with One Child
Continuing the odd events of 2009, we had only one of our four total kids at home on Christmas eve/morning this year for the first time ever, and likely last until they are adults. The older girls had gone skiing the whole week and Marc Jr was coming the week after Christmas so it worked out to be just Kellie here to open presents alone. Linda had been stuck with us for 2 weeks already, since before the Disney trip, because of her road being in such bad shape from the almost unending rain we’ve had this December, the road was just impassable and the news even did stories on it.
Christmas eve is always at my maternal grandmother’s house with her and my mom so that we can open presents between us instead of Christmas day at lunch when the whole family is there. Usually this runs later than we like because its a little bit of a drive and with 3-6 kids there depending on Marc Jr, Gabe, and now Shannon, dinner and presents, plus the trips to the computer to check out NoradSanta.org to find out where the big guy is, it just seems to get later than we expect. Fortunately this year I was following Santa on Twitter so I could keep the running back and forth down a little bit and we got home at a decent hour, well before time for Santa to pay his visit.
Kellie excited about her Zhu Zhu Pets for Christmas
Christmas day was more difficult than I thought. Usually there are kids sneaking in to the living room to see what Santa left them under the tree, mounds of shredded multicolored paper getting shredded, and quite a bit of noise from excited little kiddies, all starting around or before 6:00AM. This year we had to wake Kellie up and she didn’t even jump up right away. Kriss was depressed at not having the girls home that morning on top of them being up a mountain where there was no cell phone coverage and not even being able to call them.
The big excitement of the morning though was Kellie and her Zhu Zhu Pets. She had been having a fit for them for a month and of course they were this year’s version of the Cabbage Patch doll, both hard to find and idiots trying to sell them for 10 times their retail price. Fortunately for us we got a tip from Hollie that CVS was going to get some in and we were able to get some here in Richmond Hill as well as family in Boston finding a full set up there and shipping them to us in plenty of time.
Kellie still enjoyed all of her presents and the rest did too when they got home but I think Christmas 2010 will be back to the normal mayhem at home. This was our first year though without my grandparents, 3 of them weren’t here to celebrate with us this year. I’ve seen granny and granddaddy Christmas day every year for my entire life and I was very sad not to be able to go over to their house this year…
