The Most Magical Day

The most magical day of the year: Christmas Day. Well, technically it's the most magical 3 days for us with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after celebrations. During these 3 days the kids are happy, crazy, too full of energy, tearing into present after present, giddy with joy, and beyond thrilled that Santa thought they had been good little boys and girl. While the kids have been consumed by their new toys, it's been a crazy, tiring whirlwind for us parents.

Our Christmas went something like this:

Daddy and Max started tracking Santa (Norad). 

Christmas Eve at my Aunt's house for our Murillo family Christmas.

The minis standing in the middle of the presents.

We looked at Christmas lights on our drive home. Max requested that we go through Valley Junction. It looked pretty cool to see everything all lit up and decorated, but completely vacant.

Driving through the Waterbury neighborhood with all of the luminaries.

Bedtime book, "T'was the Night Before Christmas." The big controversy of the night happened as we finished up the book, Elizabeth got down off of my lap and stole one of Santa's cookies we had out for him. The boys cried "no!!" as she shoveled the cookie into her mouth. Then the boys ate the reindeer's carrots so I guess it was even then...

Surprisingly, the minis fell right to sleep so we got a good start on the playhouse. The biggest issue of the night was when we went to get it out of our outdoor shed only to find the shed door frozen shut. Luckily, ice melt worked quickly!

Santa left the kids a letter!

All set up and ready to go. I was actually prepared this year and wrapped all of their gifts on the 23rd so setting things out was easy this year. That left us lots of time to chat and play games with friends and family.

Our game of choice for Christmas Eve.

Opening their gifts Christmas morning! Max woke up at 5 am, but we made him wait until Harrison woke up at 7:45 am. Max laid on the couches and looked at the presents the entire time.

Elizabeth slept until 9:00 am and instantly started playing in the new playhouse. We couldn't get her to open more than one present the rest of the morning, but her brother's happily opened them for her.

And then there's me.....I got pranked Christmas morning! My wonderful husband wrapped up a "Motorized Rolling Pin" box and filled it with my favorite lotion. However, he didn't mention that fact and let me believe he had actually used our money to purchase a motorized rolling pin!

Elizabeth LOVES her dolls and the new playhouse.

Harrison's pogo stick! I really like this pogo stick, as it's all foam, easy for the kids to use, excellent energy waster, and durable. 

Watching their Aquabot in water. Bath time just got more interesting.

Breakfast was one of the kid's favorite: cinnamon roll french toast. Recipe can be found here: http://thegourmandmom.com/2011/01/02/cinnamon-french-toast-bake/

Eating Chinese while watching "A Christmas Story." 

The one present we got her to open was from Grandma Sheaffer.

The cat of course had to climb on top of the playhouse to check it out.

Within minutes of getting to Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer's house the power went out. No biggie when there's flash lights and presents!

The boys trying to "surf" on their new sleds.

Playing with their new toys.

Our last Christmas at my Grandma Ann and Grandpa Rich's house. Max loved learning how to play pool.

Family picture time (minus the hubs who had to work unfortunately).

6 Christmas's since Sunday makes for some VERY tired minis.

Christmas is now over and we are all exhausted. It seems like the days following Christmas leaves my children overly tired, cranky, and many tears shed over just about everything (berry muffins are something to cry over at 8 am apparently). Hopefully a normal schedule on Friday and a relaxing weekend with a couple of play dates will be enough to combat this post-Christmas funk my kids are in. It was a fantastic Christmas filled with family, friends, good food, laughs, and happiness, but I am more than ready to move on from this holiday. We are all Christmas-ed out over here!

Christmas Traditions

It's Christmas Eve Day here and three high strung minis are tearing through my house as I try to clean it and make room for all of the new toys that are headed their way. I've temporarily given up and planted myself on the couch (which is why I'm currently typing away). I can feel their excitement, remembering those same feelings when I was a child, and realizing that now, as a parent of three, I feel that excitement again only stronger. Something about seeing it through your children's eyes and all of that jazz that I have no interest in attempting to explain today. The excitement is just too great. They know what is coming. This afternoon/evening is our annual Christmas Eve celebration with the Murillo's, my mom's side of the family.

We have spent Christmas Eve this way ever since I can remember. There's a spread of food: ham, bread, candies, cookies, dips, crackers, clam chowder, quesadillas, veggies, and more. To go with a spread of food, there's a spread of presents. As a little kid I remember thinking it's the most presents I had ever seen, like a sea of presents I could almost jump in (I don't believe I ever did though!). I can imagine that's how my kids feel when they look under, around, in front of the tree tonight.

After we're done eating, opening presents, saying our thank you's, and loading up the car, hubs and I take the kids and look at Christmas lights. On Christmas Eve, Waterbury area does luminaries up and down the streets. It look gorgeous in front of all of those huge houses! We then make our way to Beaverdale to head down the famous Ashby, where every house on the street has lights up. We cap off our night by reading "The Night Before Christmas" and sending the minis off to bed in hopes that they'll go to sleep at some point in the next two hours.

Once the minis are asleep we open our house up to elves (otherwise known as high school friends, family, anybody we can sucker into coming to help us putting the kid's present together really. Santa doesn't wrap his presents in our house and has them all put together and ready to be played with when the minis wake up). The night carries on into early morning hours with good conversations, games, debates, and drinks. When all of the presents are set up and out, the house is cleaned, guests have left, the hubs and I head off to bed, knowing that in just a couple of hours we'll be greeted by three eager faces.

This day and night has become my favorite tradition packed with celebrating, family, friends, love, laughs....everything one should be blessed with this time of year. Most people I speak with have family traditions this time of year. We have began a few new things this year that we plan on carrying on in the years to come that will hopefully become traditions our kids look forward to every year. So I ask, what are your traditions this time of year?