Christmas Aftermath

Noisy toys. Empty boxes. Shreds of wrapping paper. Pine needles.

Sluggish. Tired. Cranky.

Too little sleep. Too much fat and sugar.

The post Christmas crash.

And what a Christmas is what was! One for the history books. Or the blog archives at least.

Let’s go back to Christmas Eve shall we?

Santa got shafted at our house this year. No cookies for him.

Oh, we intended to leave out cookies. That afternoon David and I baked a batch of sugar cookies together. We were going to decorate them that evening after our annual Christmas Eve outing to see the lights along the river walk.

But we returned home to discover that our dogs ate all of Santa’s cookies while we were out.

Also Wade threw up that night for the third time that week which confirmed a long held suspicion that he might have a milk allergy. That led us on an odyssey to find soy milk at 8 o’ clock on Christmas Eve.

There is nowhere to buy soy milk at 8 o’ clock on Christmas Eve.

At least not where we live.

David did go to bed easily that night. The quickest he ever completed his bedtime routine. We convinced him that if he wasn’t asleep when Santa came, he’d fly right by and not stop. Santa has a schedule to keep. And thanks to one of Santa’s elves at the mall, David believed that our house was his first stop. That later was amended to his first stop in America after David figured out that Santa was at his Aunt’s house in Australia 15 hours before he came here.

At 10 p.m. Dave and I finally started wrapping presents. Why did we wait so long? Mostly because we’re slackers.

Our peaceful, serene Christmas tree, complete with ugly and crooked topper, just after mid-night.

Our silent night was shattered at 6 a.m. when David crawled into bed with us. Surprisingly he snuggled patiently for 15 minutes before pleading with us to get up.

Then he tore into his packages. David only asked for three things this year:

1. Stinky the Garbage Truck – No. He did not, and will not, get that after reading reviews on Amazon that stated it was the loudest toy evah!

2. Fushigi – Which I knew would be a bust, but he so badly wanted it, and he did only have three items on his list after all. David was disappointed when he learned Fushigi isn’t really magic, and it takes practice and skill.

3. Criss Cross Crash Hotwheels track –  He was most excited about that.

He received some other gifts not on his list as well.

Wade didn’t wake up until 7:30, still too young to really get the whole Christmas thing. But he did have fun opening his presents.

Sorry. No cute, matchey-matchey Christmas morning PJs here. I’m not that organized. Also, I’m not organized enough to remember batteries for all the toys. It did not go over very well with a certain five year old when half his toys wouldn’t work.

Worst. Parents. Ever.

We headed over to my in-laws for lunch. While we were there Dave came down with a terrible case of stomach flu. He was so sick, he couldn’t ride home. So the boys and I had to leave him there, and go home without him.

We walked in the door to more canine high jinks. This time the dogs tore open two trash bags full of wrapping paper, and shredded it all into a million little pieces scattered around the kitchen and living room.

Anybody want two elderly cocker spaniels for Christmas?

Well, I need to go find out if Dave made it through the night, figure out how to assemble a race track, find wire cutters to extract a toy from it’s packaging, begin the re-location process for all the toys and empty boxes littering the living room, clean the kitchen and go buy some batteries and soy milk.

Happy Boxing Day!