The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring….

Including Anna Grace.

What a day, what a day.

The morning dawned bright and we headed out to the Headquarters of the GA Army National Guard to update our ID cards. Since it takes a while to get all of us done, I craftily borrowed some post it notes from the desk where we were based and set the girls off to drawing pictures. All was going along perfectly fine until I heard Anna Grace announce to anyone who was listening that she was drawing mommy and her boobies.

Excuse me? That ended the drawing right there.

Add to that the two girls questioning the soldiers in the department what they were doing, assisting in laminating ID cards, and being generally nosey, I am sure they were glad to see us leave.

Home again for the dreaded wrapping of gifts. I hadn’t done any. At all. None. Zilch. Nada.

As stated yesterday, Alex wrapped all the little girls stuff for me. We did solve the dilemma of the unlabeled gifts. I sliced the tape on each gift to see what was inside. I hope (fingers crossed) that everything is correct now.

The big kids wanted to wrap the gifts for each other so I divvied it all up, gave them the paper, and let them go for it. Whew.



Okay, time for Mass. Everyone dressed up, cooperated for tolerated pictures and headed out the door.



Let’s just say Anna Grace was not on her best behavior during church. I know. Shocking. I finally got her busy writing in her journal to keep her focused.



It helped enough for us to make it through church. Barely. And don’t you just love the comments from well-meaning parishioners?

Oh, they are so cute! We love to watch them play during church. They are adorable.

Ha. You come sit with them next time. They might be so adorable.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

As I started dinner, I told Dave to pull up the NORAD Santa tracker. Oh my. We had two little girls glued to the computer. They’d run away, come back, and say, “Where is Santa now?”



After dinner, we took a drive around the neighborhood seeing the lights while the big kids cleaned up. Yes, there is a method to my madness. We wanted to see the blow-up Grunch (as Anna Grace calls him).



But sadly, he was deflated.

Our hopes dashed, we returned devastated happy to have treats and prepare the snack for Santa.



Stories read, favorite Christmas ones. And who could leave out this infamous book? Do you recognize the author?



Yep, if you look at that closely, you’ll see Alex published that book in 3rd grade.

My teenage elves are chomping at the bit to set up Christmas for the little ones. They keep asking, “are they asleep yet?” Hopefully soon…..

As we head off to complete our evening, we wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas. May you enjoy the day with your family and friends.