Sleigh bells ring, are ya listenin'?

So the kids are tucked away in their crib and bed, TV's on a country music channel playing Christmas music, tree's lit up, and hubby and I are playing Scrabble. Okay, we're not playing at the moment, but nature called so I'm seizing the opportunity to get in a Christmas blog. I know damn well I won't have a moment to breathe tomorrow so this is it until Friday.

Speaking of being busy, guess who was a one-armed paper-hanger today? This girl. In the morning, I cleaned up the living room and plucked through the youngins' toys to find stuff to give to the thrift store. Then I did two loads of laundry so we don't have to go to the family Christmas dinner in dirty clothes. Then we had lunch, followed by massive amounts of cookie baking. My first batch harvested approximately three dozen of these:



About two dozen of these:


And a partridge in a pear tree one tired mama:


We played absolute hell trying to convince Beth that if she didn't go to sleep, Santa wouldn't visit and bring her presents. I think she's smarter than your average bear: she kept refusing to go to bed, insisting on watching "Charlie Brown" (the Peanuts Christmas special we DVRd a few weeks ago). We'd remind her about Santa and how he doesn't visit little kids who are awake when he passes through town, and she'd admit she wanted him to stop, but then she'd say she wanted to stay up and watch TV.

But now she's in bed, snug as a bug. After that last paragraph, Rob came back out and we finished our game of Scrabble. Now he's watching "Bad Santa" and I'm blogging. Sleepy night here in Haytown. Tomorrow will be hell on wheels. Up with the kids, open gifts, eat breakfast, showers, dress the kids, gather the family gifts and cookies, head out on [what would be a 45-minute drive] an hour and a half's drive to the in-laws where we'll be until at least 6 p.m., possibly later, and then drive back home and try to get the kids to bed.

But I'm damn excited about it! For the first time in almost four years, my oldest finally gets Christmas and the whole Santa Claus thing. She's excited and hasn't stopped talking about Christmas since the week before Thanksgiving. And her excitement is contagious. I love kids.