December 28, 2009

Christmas Morning


Predictably, Christmas morning at our house was filled with highs and lows.

High: Santa brought a Zhu Zhu pet.
Low: The Zhu Zhu pet was the wrong color.

High: Santa brought Transformers underpants.
Low: The underpants were two sizes too small.

High: Everyone found bags of gummy bears in their stockings.
Low: Someone ate all of his in one sitting and threw them up an hour later.

High: The first present that Kellen opened was a football.
Low: Always the good sport, Cortlen expressed his enthusiasm for his brother's good fortune by crawling under the sofa and crying for ten minutes.

High: Tim's parents gave the boys baseball helmets.
Low: Immediately after putting the helmets on their heads, Cortlen and Kellen head butted each other (on purpose). Cortlen spent the rest of the day complaining of a headache.

High: Tim's parents gave Camber a bottle of sparkly nail polish.
Low: She accidentally spilled it on the kitchen table.

High: I put the kids to bed at 6:30pm that night.
Low: They got up at 5:30am the next morning.

How was YOUR holiday?!

36 comments

Emz said...

TOO tight transformer underpants?!? Is there really such a thing? ;)

Jenny said...

Before Christmas I threatened my children with death if they even dared to whine about anything. It was a very quiet Christmas morning.

KTW said...

Believe it or not, NO CATASTROPHES THIS YEAR! Having trouble accepting it myself! Still can't say it was a quiet Christmas morning because with 10 adults and 3 kids tearing into packages, modeling new clothes and trying out new games, 'quiet' isn't the word that comes to mind. ;)

Joanna Wilson said...

our family (my birth family)has a tradition of putting books together on one or another theme. The first was done for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. anyhoo (and here's the connection, finally) in that book we all listed our best and worst christmas gifts as a kid-it reads just like the entries in this blog entry mine: the best: a barbie; the worst: that same barbie cuz it was not a real barbie

sounds like you have a perfectly wonderful normal family

The Four Week Vegan said...

Sounds like the perfect day! Ours was peaceful. The teens got up at 4am, but we parents slept until 7 - having teens is good sometimes :)

Christina said...

Stressful!! ;) We all got hit with a flu bug the Monday before, then colds for all 4 of us, and to top it off an sinus infection for me. We made the best of it though, and the girls had fun. All that matters really.

Stephanie said...

Santa put two bottles of bubbles in each kid's stocking. By the next morning, all the bubbles had either been blown or spilled on the carpet. Well, at least the kids had fun with them.

Kiki said...

my christmas was about the same, but without that many kids and presents. we had tears, a fall {done by my father in-law, busted his elbow}, my son's unhappiness with gifts from santa, or lack thereof, and some dog vomit as opposed to a nail polish spill. take care.

Working Mommy said...

Thankfully the babe - at 6 months old - will not remember Christmas this year...and hopefully the same goes for next year as well. I guess we shall see!!

~WM

Kriste said...

I wish mine were little again to really enjoy the wonder of Christmas. And so I could threaten that Santa would not come and just throw coal into their room.

Jen@Scrapingirl said...

heehee... That sounds just like ours. My mantra was "BE HAPY WITH WHATEVER YOU GET!!" He said thanks with his mouth, but not his face. :) We're working on that.

Anonymous said...

If I would've complained about my toys when I was a kid (especially the hard to find ones) my mom would've taken them back to the store so there wasn't much complaining from me!

Jen said...

Wow. I'm sorry you had such a rollercoaster holiday. Yet, I feel SO much better about mine. Thank you for sharing this.

Rebecca is Thrilled by the Thought said...

Lol. That is one of the funniest posts I've read in a while.

Our Christmas began 2 hours too early. We woke up our toddler. She started out confused, transformed to excited, then melted into anger. We should have let her wake up on her own.

likeschocolate said...

Sounds like our house, but with a dose of pneumonia and 2 children with sinus infections. My husband laughed so hard when I read your post to him it hurt. He is the one with pneuonia.

Emmy said...

Definitely some highs and lows. :) I think we mostly survived... other than my three-year-old whining and crying for more candy all day.

Anonymous said...

High: Being glad you didn't give the zhu zhu pet like you wanted.

Jan Russell said...

I bought a DS for my 7 year old, thinking my 3 year old would be happy to have his older brothers Leapster. Why don't you just go ahead and guess how my Christmas was?

Jan Russell said...

Oh, oh, oh - and I don't want to forget, that like Jenny, I also threatened my children with death before leaving for my IL's house to spend the rest of Christmas day with them.

My loving and supportive dh then commented on what a joy it was to be spending the day with someone so wrapped up in holiday spirit...

and that was the last time we spoke all day.

Cue the music - Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
D said...

My 4 year old son is an only child and very spoiled...especially since my husband and I are only children, so he's the only grandchild. He got tons for Christmas except one item he had asked for...a Lego Star Wars set that had Yoda. I bought him the individual Lego Yoda in a 3 pack and told him Daddy could make the ship. I thought everything was cool until the day after Christmas when he wouldn't stop asking for it. Of course Grandma (my mom) is getting it for him... And, to top it off, he's now started to ask how long until Easter since he knows he gets some gifts then... sigh...

(Sorry...messed up my last post which is why I deleted it...)

Anonymous said...

My Christmas was spent with the folks telling me that I should find a nice man and make them grandbabies. Stat. The food was good though. Mostly because I spent the vast majority of the day in the kitchen making most of it. And I put up the tree for them, because they didn't feel like it. There are years I definitely wonder why we even bother celebrating since there are no kids in the family (much to my folks' chagrin) and most of the extended family is Jewish and doesn't visit anyway.

Sally said...

Other than everyone coming down with a cold, our Christmas was really nice. I'm glad you had some good moments.

mary said...

In our house, the first gift opened prompted "the first cry of Christmas" (an annual event). Guess what that gift was? Wailing five year old's quote - "I didn't want a hamster." Needless to say, Santa left a note mentioning his disappointment in their behavior this year and gave Mommy & Daddy the right to revoke their present privileges. My husband calls it the "Santa Dearest" letter. The revoking process began three hours after opening presents.

Heather said...

It took a couple hours for our 2 year old to open presents, not because of the number of presents, but because he would open one and then insist on playing with it for a good 20 minutes before we could distract him with another present. It was pretty fun, minus the fact that we couldn't get him to stop for Breakfast OR Lunch, and then he skipped his nap and had a hungry/tired meltdown mid afternoon. But all things considered, not too bad!

Stef said...

My 5 kids were so excited. My daughter became upset because her BROTHERS got more presents than her...then she counted them. She was one up on all of them. Enough said.

becca said...

seriously. sounds about right to me. why do we torture ourselves?

was Santa good to you? you deserve it.

Renate Hunter said...

With 5 adult children,1 teen, and 3 grandchildren, it went well. I had lost a Xbox game for the teen and found it 2 days later in a bathroom drawer. The five year old wanted farm equipement that isn't made yet and was disappointed. But we were able to surprise the older ones. My challenge was to find a box big enough for a trophy buck(deer) shot a year ago by the 34 yr old son. Imagine going into a store to ask for a big box for a head? He was certainly surprised when that was opened and had even asked at lunch when his uncle was going to give the antlers back to him--we all acted dumb about it....My eighty year old parents use to give us batteries, blank tapes, and old report cards and papers--this year it was money.... One year I got a toilet and a used car....at age 51. I was certainly surprised! Then, dad told me with a serious look, it was the last car he'd give me--Am I spoiled or what????

Renate Hunter said...

With 5 adult children,1 teen, and 3 grandchildren, it went well. I had lost a Xbox game for the teen and found it 2 days later in a bathroom drawer. The five year old wanted farm equipement that isn't made yet and was disappointed. But we were able to surprise the older ones. My challenge was to find a box big enough for a trophy buck(deer) shot a year ago by the 34 yr old son. Imagine going into a store to ask for a big box for a head? He was certainly surprised when that was opened and had even asked at lunch when his uncle was going to give the antlers back to him--we all acted dumb about it....My eighty year old parents use to give us batteries, blank tapes, and old report cards and papers--this year it was money.... One year I got a toilet and a used car....at age 51. I was certainly surprised! Then, dad told me with a serious look, it was the last car he'd give me--Am I spoiled or what????

Unknown said...

That is too funny! They really do grow up WAY too fast and you will look back and be glad you had such "fun" memories of Christmas morning with your littles!

One of mine is married and was with her in-laws, three were with their father in Washington with his side of the family, and my college student was home with me.

It was peaceful and quiet, but I cried for a little while that morning too.

Enjoy the chaos ... it doesn't last.

Susan said...

I know my kids (girls ages 11,9,7 and 5) weren't 100% happy with the way their gifts turned out (they got some clothes--GASP!!!) But we had the chat the night before about how they were having 4 Christmases and they were to be happy with whatever was brought to them. I heard no complaints... Too many complaints during Christmas Eve service though :(

Meg said...

Ugh. My almost 3 year old spent most of the morning (while my husband was running/shoveling the driveway and ignoring my pleas for help) screaming that he wanted me to go away forever and only wanted daddy and the tractor Santa brought him. I got my husband a watch, new sunglasses, and a Blackberry, and he got me some crap from the gift shop at the resort where he works. My dog also had the runs all over the floor. I took down the tree the very next day. When my husband said it seemed too soon, I declared myself officially done with Christmas.

Renate Hunter said...

I'm Lisa's aunt from the midwest.

Sam's Minions (aka parents- Angie and Brian) said...

Mine actually went off pretty much without a hitch. All of the family came over for breakfast and Christmas dinner with present opening in between. No fights between the relatives and the food turned out very well (if I do say so myself since this was my first major holiday cooking).

Cathryn said...

For those with little kids, you might try this:
Our tradition for the last 12 years has been when the kids wake up they can open their stocking and play with what they got in the stocking then we eat breakfast. I make an egg/potato/cheese casserole the night before and stick it in the oven when we wake up, it takes 45 minutes to bake which is perfect timing. After we have taken time to eat a healthy breakfast and talk excitedly about what was in the stockings, who the biggest present is for and take time to give thanks to our Heavenly Father for the meaning of Christmas... we head back to the gifts and take our own sweet time opening and playing. When the kids were younger, we had to monitor one person open at a time, but now they are older they demand it--they want it to last most the day. (They are now ages 23, 17, 14, 12, 11, 9) This has helped elevate the emotional meltdown that comes with lots of sugar and excitement and no maturity. (Adults not excluded!)

Better luck next year!

Anonymous said...

Less highs, more lows. Glad the new year is here.

Thanks for the laughs. I've joined your possee.