Time To Recoup

On Christmas Eve morning the kids were full of nervous energy.  Would Santa Claus come tonight?  Would they get what they asked for?  Had they been good enough all year?  Was grandma going to have their favorite meatballs, cookies, and candies?  

While Todd and I ran around getting everything ready for his mom's house the kids occupied themselves with a few games.

I call this picture "The calm before the storm".  It is probably the last image I will have of a clean living room for a while.  

Soon after we were off to grandma's house where we had food aplenty, presents, and good family fun.  Then it was a late bedtime and an early rising the next morning to see what was waiting beneath the tree.  From there it was a flash of wrapping paper, batteries, empty toy boxes, squeals of laughter and joy, quickly eaten cereal, rushing to get dressed for church, an hour of somewhat calm and peace during church, and a couple of very quick naps for some littles before we rushed off to another Christmas gathering at grandma's (my mom's) and more food aplenty, presents, and good family fun.

It was another very late night for the kids as we let them stay up until TEN so that they could watch A Christmas Story as they broke in their brand new bean bag chairs and nibbled on the smores snacks (the  one and only thing I asked for) that grandma made us.  It was a lovely way to round out our Christmas.

Normally there is too much chaos on Christmas morning to get a picture but I got one this year.  It was taken right before the presents were opened and you can see the excitement on the kids' faces (and in Molly's tail).


It is safe to say that we are all exhausted.  I really had to drag myself out of bed this morning, and I'm ready to crawl back in now.  But, once again, there is no rest for the weary.

I am getting ready to go give blood (there is a massive shortage this time of year and a special blood drive was arranged at the last minute because of it) and afterwards I will stop off at the grocery store to pick up a few groceries for a trip up north.  Then we will pack up the car and hopefully I can rest a bit on the three hour drive north.  Perhaps I will even relax a smidge once we get to the cabin, but seeing as how we are meeting family up there I have a feeling it will be more party, party, party.  And that's not bad either.  We had planned on going skiing tomorrow, but I just don't know if ANY of us have it in us at this point.  We might just use these couple of days to sit around, eat too much food, and recoup our lost sleep and energy.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are recuperating nicely.