Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells....

As usual, I procrastinated until the very last possible minute to finish my Christmas shopping.  I finally finished it up around noon on Christmas Eve.  Of course, I also hadn't so much as wrapped a single present, and the kids were with me all day so I had to wait until Jeff got home from work at 11:30 pm to even start.  I put the kids to bed around 10:00, hoping that they'd be really asleep by the time Jeff got home.  After reading them 3 different Christmas books, then reciting 'Twas the Night Before Christmas', they finally settled down enough to fall asleep.  So, at midnight, after pouring ourselves a glass of wine, we quietly brought all the presents into the living room & got to work.  We took our time & finished at about 2:00 am.  As we were getting ready for bed, we noticed that Santa had come while we weren't looking & set out 2 new Razor scooters!  I knew the kids would be VERY excited about them, since their scooters were stolen off of our driveway a few months ago.

For the first time since we've been married, we skipped church & slept in Christmas morning.  It was so nice, relaxing, calm & quiet.  I have to admit, Jeff & I both felt a little guilty for not going to Mass with Jerry, but we both agreed that it is always soooo incredibly hectic on Christmas morning: getting up early, getting everyone fed & dressed, Mass at 8:00, home at 9:30, quickly open presents, change clothes, off to Jerry's, open presents, eat lunch, off to Steve & Bev's, eat dinner, back home after dark, FINALLY play with our new toys, and then bedtime.  And the whole day, we hear nothing but, "We want to go home & play with our toys!"  Frankly, it just sucks.  I NEVER look forward to Christmas Day because it's just exhausting.  Well this year, we did what we wanted to do, and skipped the chaos.  We woke up around 9:30, opened presents, ate, then didn't leave for Steve & Bev's until around 3:00.  Stayed 'til 6:00 and came back home.  It was so great!  I also made this awesome breakfast casserole that I was so excited about (a layer of biscuits, then sausage, then "scrambled egg" layer.. eggs, milk, salt, pepper, cheese... and finally more cheese on top).  Jeff & I both really liked it; the kids hated it (why was I surprised?), so they ended up with Lucky Charms.  Go figure.

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!  Here are a few pics of the kids opening presents:

New scooters from Santa!

Aidan's favorite present: his DSi

Alison favorite: her iPod Nano