But I can hardly quit talking about Christmas when I'm just now getting to the post about Christmas Day, now can I? Especially when JONAH GOT DRUMS.
That's right. You heard me.
Christmas morning we got started with gifts at 8:30. In the ay-em. In my mind, that is still the butt-crack of dawn, but I suppose for everyone else it's practically midday. Whatevs.
Grayson's family has this staggered approach to gifts, where you open your stockings at 8:30, take a good, long break (during which my kids wanted to hurl themselves off a bridge), eat lunch, then unhurriedly gather back around the tree and open wrapped gifts mid-afternoon. I would like to take a moment now to publicly commend my children for making it through that tradition alive. (Our family tradition is to open everything at 9 a.m. and play with it for a full 72 minutes before getting bored with it and starting to ask how long it is until next Christmas.)
But Jonah opened his drums first, because even though they don't fit in a stocking, they were taking up the most space in the room and were loosely covered up with a tablecloth or something. Plus, Matt had worked on putting them together for hours the night before and REALLY needed to see the happiness that resulted from his labor or he might have gone into a full-fledged depression. So, DRUMS.
And really, Internet.
Have you EVER.
I mean, he was SO excited! It was adorable. He played and played and played. It MIGHT have been a TEENY, TINY bit loud. I mean, they're real drums. And real cymbals. But it was worth it. I don't know if Matt and Patrice feel like it was a good idea NOW, three weeks of percussion later, but it sure was cute then.
After Jonah opened his drums, the other kids got started on their stockings. Amelia was excited to find her first toothbrush and toothpaste.
AND Amelia got to open every girl's dream! THE INVISIBLE JET!
I'd literally been waiting months for that moment, and although she didn't scream, "Wonder Woman and her invisible jet! Just what I've always wanted!" ... it was still quite a moment. Also, I might have yelled it for her.
The boys loved everything in their stockings, too.
After stockings, it was time for lunch, and then I decided to be helpful and wash some of the dishes that couldn't go in the dishwasher. And apparently I angered the dishwashing gods.
After lunch, it was finally time to open the wrapped gifts. (Also time for a change of clothes for Amelia, for those of you girls who notice things like that.)
While Amelia was somewhat interested in the wrapped gifts, she was FAR more interested in the Matchbox cars she'd been playing with all week. She played with those cars for hours on end, and even a brand-new invisible jet couldn't tear her away.
We really only do the stockings for our kids (but I try to do really great stockings) and maybe one or two gifts to unwrap. But our families and friends are very generous with our kids, which is what you see reflected here.
Jake's wrapped gift from us was this cape from Capes for a Cause.
He and Amelia each got one ... hers is hot pink with an "A" on the back (obviously), and hers has owl fabric on the interior. Jake's has robots on the interior.
The profits from the sale of these capes support an Ethiopian organization that provides for orphaned children, many of whose parents have died of AIDS.
Amelia was really excited to open her Little People princes and princesses, who are adorable, by the way. I love a princess who shares my body type, and Little People fit the bill infinitely better than Barbies, let's just be real here.
They go with her first castle, which is a pink-and-purple number, also by Fisher-Price, that plays music and entertains her to no end. I can report that she plays with it every day.
I can also report that Cinderella can fly the invisible jet just as well as Wonder Woman can, and Wonder Woman sleeps just fine in the castle.
Finally, I wanted to include one picture from our drive home ... Amelia figured out that when she wanted a snack, she could fuss and stick her left hand out the side of her seat, and Grayson would turn around and stick a yogurt melt or piece of cereal in it.
Needless to say, she spent a large part of the 11-hour drive home with that hand stuck out just like this:
And with that, I wrap up my Christmas posts. Happy New Year, y'all.
No comments:
Post a Comment