Have I mentioned that we kind of forgot to bring up the whole topic of Santa to Ruby? I'm fairly certain that she knows who Santa is because of daycare but Heath and I have never talked about him at home and she has never asked anything about him. She's hasn't been to see Santa at the mall, we don't put cookies out for Santa, etc. etc. Earlier in the month Heath said, "I guess we should try and do the Santa thing...." and that was about as far as it got. After we had her my first reaction was, "I don't want to Lie to her!" but after thinking about it *I* wasn't traumatized by finding out Santa wasn't real and I didn't hold anything against my parents for playing the Santa game. As lame as it is I guess we are just lazy. But really, why should some mythical bearded fat guy get all the credit for all the cool gifts that we work hard to get for her? I don't think that her Christmas experience is ruined because she doesn't think that Santa comes down the chimney to deliver gifts. We do other stuff... like make totally innapropriate sugar cookies....
Not doing the Santa thing has its advantages. No midnight (or later) wrapping parties here! Our gifts had been sitting under the tree for a week before Christmas ready to go. Amazingly I didn't wander in the living room to find any/all gifts unwrapped and the floor covered in paper. My work schedule was cruel (i.e. I had to go in very early) the days leading up to Christmas and I had to work Christmas Eve so we decided to open our gifts on Dec. 23. This also eliminated the need to haul all of these gifts down to Pikeville and back again.
Not doing the Santa thing has its advantages. No midnight (or later) wrapping parties here! Our gifts had been sitting under the tree for a week before Christmas ready to go. Amazingly I didn't wander in the living room to find any/all gifts unwrapped and the floor covered in paper. My work schedule was cruel (i.e. I had to go in very early) the days leading up to Christmas and I had to work Christmas Eve so we decided to open our gifts on Dec. 23. This also eliminated the need to haul all of these gifts down to Pikeville and back again.
Ruby was excited about her gifts but not as excited as I was when I opened my gift from Heath: A Go Pro! A GP was on my list but I wasn't expecting it as it was over the $100 limit that we set for each other. BUT Heath was awesome (and lucky) and WON one, with several accessories, at his work Christmas Party Score!! I was psyched. Jasper was barely interested in the proceedings, he just looked super adorable.
After work on Christmas Eve we packed up the kids and drove down to Heath's parents house. Thankfully Jasper is a champion when it comes to being in the car and road trips and Ruby slept most of the way down (very rare for her). After we arrived we ate dinner and opened more gifts.
Since all gift opening had occurred the night before you'd think that sleeping in would be part of the equation but alas Ruby decided that we had to wake up at 8:30. After breakfast we drove to Heath's cousin's house where more people got to meet Jasper for the first time. We opened a few more gifts, ate yummy food, and then drove back to Lexington so that I could get enough sleep to wake up at 3am so that I could go to work. Barf.
This year was definitely involved a lot of faking it until I made it as far as the holidays went. By the time the 26th rolled around I was completely exhausted from work/Jasper not sleeping/pumping all the time. People at work would ask, "How was your Christmas?" and I'd give a half-hearted, "It was okay." Because I was frickin' exhausted! I hated to seem so negative but that's just how it was this year. The tree was up, we made sugar cookies, a made a christmas card/birth announcement, wrapped gifts etc. I think I did pretty good considering that I really wanted to be in bed by 7pm every night. Perhaps next year won't be so crazy? Or maybe just a slightly less tiring version of crazy??
This year was definitely involved a lot of faking it until I made it as far as the holidays went. By the time the 26th rolled around I was completely exhausted from work/Jasper not sleeping/pumping all the time. People at work would ask, "How was your Christmas?" and I'd give a half-hearted, "It was okay." Because I was frickin' exhausted! I hated to seem so negative but that's just how it was this year. The tree was up, we made sugar cookies, a made a christmas card/birth announcement, wrapped gifts etc. I think I did pretty good considering that I really wanted to be in bed by 7pm every night. Perhaps next year won't be so crazy? Or maybe just a slightly less tiring version of crazy??
