Christmas Day

We worried Em wouldn't sleep well on Christmas Eve, after all she knew Santa was coming. We'd been talking about him for months, although she was still a little fuzzy on the details. When we'd explained that he slides down the chimney, she'd laughed and exclaimed "that's silly" :) And we didn't overly emphasize the fact that he comes when she's asleep. Poor girl's spooked about nighttime already, we didn't want to make her fear of the dark any worse. But since we put out some treats that night, we thought he'd be on her mind.

So we were surprised when she woke up at 7am, as usual, yelling, "Mom, my owl turned green. MOM, my owl turned green." (We bought this alarm-clock owl months ago when she moved into her new room, and so far it's worked like a charm. She calls for me every morning at precisely 7:12am, not a minute earlier. I love that owl.)

As she made her way into the family room for her morning milk, she didn't know what to think of the pile of presents or the kitchenette in the corner (she hadn't asked for a kitchenette, but Santa'd found an online deal too good to pass up). Together we examined the plate of cookies and carrots which had definitely been nibbled. It seemed she was still processing things, so we suggested opening some gifts.

She's a pro at unwrapping presents (hers or anyone else's) and we thought she might tear through them all in mere minutes, but she was so taken with each new item that she wanted to play with it right away. The pile of gifts stayed around a few days before we finally got through everything. Which was kind of nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That afternoon while everyone was playing Cootie and Chutes & Ladders, Matt cooked up a storm. He made his first ever beef tenderloin (it was AMAZING) pairing it with carrots, herb biscuits, wild rice, broccoli, and some fancy sauce. The dinner plates looked exactly like the cookbook picture. Exactly.

The food was delicious, and Matt even got kudos for the complicated chart he'd put together to coordinate everything. At one point he had 4 different timers going for various things boiling/baking/broiling and a few minutes after we sat down to eat, one of them went off. He carefully looked around the table and then shrugged saying, "I have no idea what that's for." We got a good laugh out of it. Didn't seem to matter, the meal was perfection.

Emily chowed down on the tenderloin, asking for seconds and then thirds. Being such a picky eater, we gratefully accepted this as our Christmas gift from her. And Charlotte, sweet Charlotte, sat calmly on Aunt Beca's lap for the e-n-t-i-r-e meal. The dinner couldn't have gone better!

 

  

 

 

 

We ended the night with another viewing of Frosty, Em's favorite. And the Christmas movies are still on regular rotation in these parts. Just watched Rudolph again today. We did take the decorations down a few weeks ago, but she's such a fan of the movies we haven't packed them up yet. Which keeps thoughts of Christmas around, so she'll sometimes say (out of the blue and with complete sincerity), "Santa's very nice." Guess she understands who brought that kitchenette after all :)