Twas the Night Before Christmas....

And it was one of the few nights my kids were excited to go to bed! But before we could do that we needed to make sure the milk and cookies were set out with care for soon old Saint Nick would soon be there.

Each child wanted to pick out a 'special' cookie that we had made just for Santa.


Then We had to place said cookies and said glass of milk next to the tree. I was worried that a dog or cat may destroy what was left for dear old Santa, so we weren't sure if we should do plastic or glass, plastic or glass....hmm we decided Santa deserved the real thing, so glass it was.

We said our prayers and everyone scooted off to bed. The funny part is that recently Andrew has been in the habit of waking up sometime during the night and turning his bedroom light on. Sometimes he gets up, sometimes he just falls back asleep. But many nights, I'll see his light on from under the door and I'll sneak in there and he's out cold with the light blaring. So I was sure to tell the kids that on THIS night, that no one should be awake, because if Santa arrives and he sees that children are awake and/or out of bed, he may very well pass right on by the house to go the next one.

So the next morning, the kids slept in for once. I was shocked. But then I realized that maybe they didn't just sleep in, maybe they were just a little freaked to come out too early in case Santa hadn't arrived as of yet.

So a little after 7am, Cailin crept out and into our room. The first thing she said was "mom, was Santa here?". I said "I don't know, should we go look?" And off she cruised, with me in tow. Once she spied the tree with presents and the stockings lined up full, she squealed "HE'S BEEN HERE MOMMY! HE'S BEEN HERE!".

(you see we had the tree pretty much baricaded because the dog would like to try to grab a branch with it's teeth and attempted repeatedly to pull it over. So we had all sorts of furniture blocking the tree, this was one of the first times we actually had the tree open and in full-view for all. It didn't last long though, at least until the dog woke up and emerged from his kennel.....)


Now we waited until the rest of the family arose and the kids got to work on opening their Santa presents. They were very excited to get a Wii system, a few games and the accompanying pieces.

Proof that Santa had polished his yummy cookies and milk.



We of course spent time talking about the other meaning of Christmas....The kids even sang an inspiring version of "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus. Of course, that was not caught on film which was a bummer.