My Favorite Christmas Picture

Little Man's preschool teacher was thoughtful enough to knit slippers for all her students. He was very excited about these, and also all the Star Wars stuff he got for Christmas. We used this picture as a thank you to the teacher with the following message....

"thank you very much for the bunny slippers. They keep my feet nice and warm while I fight the rebel forces"

Sincerely
DarthVader
Aka Little Man

Happy 2nd Day of Christmas

The past few days have been too busy to write but now that Christmas is over and grownups are relaxing while kids are busy playing with their toys it's time to catch up.

Christmas Eve we had our traditional dinner - Honey Baked Ham with potatoes au gratin, and green beans with bacon vinaigrette. This year I also got a side of sweet potato casserole from Honey Baked Ham since Little Man liked it so much at Thanksgiving. Dessert is Swedish Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream. It's one of the few days out of the year that we eat in the dining room and bring out the fancy stuff - china, crystal, silver etc.

After dinner the kids changed in to their new Christmas pjs and my husband read Twas the Night Before Christmas and then we sent them all to bed. I prepped the French Toast Casserole for the following morning and while we waited for the kids to fall alseep. It took a while before the kids finally fell asleep and we could put the last of the gifts out, and get to bed ourselves.

Christmas morning my in-laws woke up before the kids. Not because they are super early risers, but because they kids were asleep til 8am!!! They actually didn't get out of bed until my husband and I opened their doors. It took us about 4 hours to open all the gifts (with a brief break for breakfast). The kids were all very happy with their gifts - tons of Lego stuff for everyone, and Star Wars stuff for Little Man. Our daughters both got cameras from Santa and have been having a great time taking pictures and videos of everything. This will be our most documented Christmas ever - thank God for digital cameras or we'd be spending a fortune in film :)


Since we've had hardly any snow this year my father-in-law's one wish was to have a White Christmas. Sure enough it started snowing mid-morning. It was the perfect amount, just enough to make it pretty, but not so much that we had to get out the snow blower. We took the kids out for a while to get some fresh air and have a snow ball fight.

The adults got good stuff too, I gave my husband AppleTV - we're finally joining the 21st century, and he got me a new iPad with keyboard which will back blogging much easier. But my favorite gifts as always were the crafty ones from the kids.

Little Reader painted this in art class. 

Little Hugger made this handprint ornament

Little Man made this handprint wreath.

Midafternoon we had a snack of aebleskiver and glogg, and I used the ham bone from the Honey Baked Ham to make split pea soup for dinner. 

Today I am slowly taking my time getting the house back to relative tidyness.  Dinner tonight is going to be very easy - Sloppy Joes.  I've done enough cooking and baking in the past couple of days I need a break.

Christmas Shopping

Christmas shopping is tough when you have little kids. You can't buy stuff for them when they are with you as that would ruin the surprise - obviously. You can't buy a lot for other people as they can necessarily be trusted to keep secrets. But as a Mom it can be tough to get away to shop.

Online shopping is a godsend of course, and I did buy quite a bit online this year. Still, I like to browse and find those surprise gifts that the kids didn't know they wanted but end up loving. I hate browsing online.

My daughters are in school full days but Little Man is only at school three mornings a week, and while I manage to pack a lot in to the 2 1/2 hours I'm without him on those days, there is a limit to how far I can go.

So for the past three years, I've picked a random night when I go to Schaumburg and get as much as I can. Anyone from Chicago knows that Schaumburg is the home to our largest mall and every other major retailer you can think of.

Before I go, I call the various stores I need to go to to find out their hours and chart my course based on earliest closing times. I make a list of stores and items I'm looking for, kiss the kids goodbye, grab a Coke to keep me going and head out.

While I usually like to go earlier, this year I had to wait until tonight to go. Usually I go midweek as it's less crowded but even for the Friday before Christmas it wasn't that bad. Long lines in some stores but not the ones I needed.

I made it home just after midnight and while there are a couple of things on my list I'd like to get but couldn't find, I am basically done. If I have time this weekend I may check around for the last few items but the fact is our kids will have a very happy Christmas with what they get - most, but not all the wishes from their lists and a couple of surprises.

Now I am sitting by my tree in a quiet house with a quick glass of wine to counteract my 9pm Coke, before heading off to bed. Tomorrow I need to start wrapping.