Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve brought the six of us together. Brian was able to stop work at noon, so we left after that and went to see Santa. Now, all of our santa pictures are in little frames that we attach to our bannister so that it starts from Big Al as a baby, up to present times. I guess in a couple of years we'll have to double them up so we have room. After Santa we went to lunch, and Brian went out on his own to buy some last minute things.

While Brian was gone, the girls and I delivered homemade fudge to the neighbors, and dropped off a couple of gifts for the girls' friends.

Brian grilled out and we sat down to watch Santa Clause 2 (we had watched The Santa Clause the night before). The goal was to then watch A Christmas Story, but all of us were sort of dragging (although Big Al was trying to be as tired as possible because she is the only one of ours that can't sleep on Christmas Eve). During the movie, Cheesie and Blondie kept running to the computer to see where Norad placed Santa. They wanted to make sure they were in bed long before he hit our state.

While Brian, Blondie and T-Rex watched a Christmas Story, I took Cheesie to bed. Big Al and I then wrapped last minute presents, and I finished up the felt food on the sewing machine. Although I didn't finish my whole "food to-do" list, I did plenty for them to get excited about - I hope. At least they can have some input as to what we make next.

Around 10 o'clock, everyone else was in bed waiting for Santa.

Quick story about the stockings - 6 years ago I had 3 children and decided they needed matching stockings, so I bought them. Two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant with number 4 - I ran out to buy the fourth one, but they were gone. So since then I haven't bought any more because we had a couple extra, and I didn't think anyone really cared. We lined them up by age (Brian, Kelly, Big Al, T-Rex, Blondie, and Cheesie). Cheesie decided that her snowman stocking was too small, and she wanted one of the ones her sister had - except none of them would trade with her. So she came crying to me, and I of course offered her my MUCH longer stocking. She was happy, and then gloated to her sisters that hers was the biggest. Then I came down to look at them, and she had rearranged the order too. Our stocking holders spell Santa with Brian's stocking being held up by a Santa holder. Mine was on the S, Big Al's was on the A, T-Rex's was on the T, and Blondie (whose real name starts with A) was on the last A. Cheesie's was on the N. I asked her why and she said that her (real) name has an N in it, so that's how it's supposed to be. That child is a SERIOUS organizer.