Merry Christmas

My daughter spent the whole day today telling us about her plan to stay up all night and catch Santa Claus...if he even exists.

"I know it's you," she said to me half a dozen times.

"You're welcome to wait for him," I told her, "But you're going to have to wait for him in your bedroom with the lights off."

When my husband went in to check on her at 8:45pm, she was out like a light.

He did find this letter however, sitting on a chair in the middle of her room:



Seriously, is there anything more cute (other than the exact same letter written by your nine year-old?)?

We didn't see Santa make his appearance, but we did peek in our daughter's room after the delivery.



I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas!!!

Oops

Christmas Cookies

not so much

I don't usually hear voices, except in the middle of the grocery store around the holidays. Every year without fail the display of Christmas cookie ingredients speaks to me.

"You can totally do this," encouraged a mound of almond bark.

"You're not a woman if you don't do this," said a tub of peanut butter and a bag of Hershey's kisses.

"Buy me!" screamed a cookie press.

I swiped it all into my shopping cart before the candy thermometer could open her mouth.

I am deathly afraid of candy thermometers.

I had all of the cookie supplies stored safely out of view, that is, until this afternoon when I found my three year-old sitting on the kitchen counter, eating his way through a bag of toffee chips.

"There's a party in my tummy," he explained when I asked him what he was doing. "So yummy. So yummy."

I snatched the bag out of his hands, but it was too late. My older kids and their friends saw the forbidden fruit.

"Really?" my daughter asked, clasping her hands together in eager anticipation. It was like I was holding a large white horse wearing a purple saddle (her latest object of desire).

I learned very quickly that making cookies with seven helpers is seven times the fun.

My three year-old was tasked with unwrapping 25 Hershey's kisses. When he was done, he announced that he had licked four of the candies, but couldn't remember which ones.

My sons and their friends were thrilled to discover that when rolled just the right way, chocolate cookie dough bears a striking resemblance to dog feces.

My daughter was insistent on measuring everything herself, which resulted in cookie dough with twice as much flour as the recipe required.

"Exercise extreme caution," I whispered to my husband he came through the front door and was greeted with seven outstretched plates.

"Try mine first!" everyone yelled in unison.

"Hmm," my husband said, studying each of the objects with a critical eye. He found it hard to choose between the bloated snickerdoodles and the turds.

"Can we give the rest to our neighbors?" my kids asked. "Please?"

We all agreed that it's good to be generous around the holidays.

Stocking Stuffers

My world is destabilized. Everything I thought I knew about Christmas and the human body is now cast in doubt.

It's all my third grader's fault.

"So what's up with Santa?" she asked me this morning in the middle of the holiday aisle at Target.

"What do you mean?" I replied, with one hand stuck deep inside a dollar bin.

She pointed to a sign that read "Stocking Stuffers."

" If Santa is real," she asked, "Why would stores sell things for stockings? And why are so many moms here buying them?"

I glanced around and made eye contact with at least 8 other women who were scooping magnets and notepads and stickers and other meaningless junk into their shopping carts.

I explained, to the best of my ability, that corporate America likes alliteration as much as I do. "Stocking Stuffer is just a fancy way of saying 'present,'" I told her.

She didn't look convinced.

"My friends at school told me that Santa isn't real," she said casually.

"No!" I cried. "It can't be!"

"That's what they told me," she continued.

I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. "What else did they tell you?"

"That hair is going to start growing under my arms when I'm a teenager."

I practically fainted in horror. "Why would someone say something so horrible?" I gasped.

My daughter looked at my intently. "So is it true?" she asked.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "About the underarm hair--yes," I confessed. "As for Santa, the rule is if you don't believe, you don't receive."

My daughter nodded solemnly. "I believe," she confessed. "A lot."

O Christmas Tree

Christmas trees are hard to come by in Orlando. At least for those who neglect to shop for theirs until a week before the big day.

The only trees that were left at the place we visited tonight were lopsided, missing half their branches, or had needles so sharp that they could draw blood.

We ended up choosing one that had all three of these desirable attributes.

"We'll just have to put it in a corner," my husband said.

We couldn't believe our good luck: we got the tree set up and the lights and ornaments put on without issue. No one fought over who was going to put the star on top of the tree. No one threw a temper tantrum and had to be expelled from the room. As we stood back to admire the finished product, however, the lights on the tree flickered...and then went out.

"It's okay," I chirped, desperate to preserve the moment. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I plugged and unplugged the lights from the wall socket, I couldn't cajole them into turning back on.

Of course, the broken string of lights turned out to be the one in the middle of the tree. And of course we had to strip the tree in order to figure that out.

"Don't buy these lights anymore," my husband told me through gritted teeth.

I had purchased the lights at the dollar store and had gotten exactly one dollar's worth of electricity out of them.

While my husband and I were messing with the lights, my kids succeeded in breaking three family heirloom ornaments and almost strangling themselves with a string of outdoor lights.

"They aren't toys!" I screeched. "Or weapons!"

By the time the tree was naked again, I had muttered three bad words under my breath. My attitude got so bad that my husband had to expel me from the room.

"Are you ready to come back in and join the family?" my daughter asked 10 minutes later. Her hands were on her hips.

I thought about the broken ornaments. "I need five more minutes," I told her.