The always entertaining, much anticipated B. family Christmas review.

So the girls were wound up last week. Actually, they were about ten steps beyond wound up. A long week of no school with sub-freezing temperatures meant they had been cramped up in the house. Threats about Santa skipping the home of girls who didn’t listen to their parents didn’t work anymore. They were getting too many sweets each day, there were too many guests, and there just wasn’t enough running room in the house to get all that energy out. They were 1000 miles per hour, screaming all day, every day leading up to Christmas.

Despite that, they were generally excellent at Christmas Eve Mass. Which is a very good thing, because this was the longest Mass I ever had the privilege of sitting through. 90 minutes. We were fortunate in that we got a late arrival waiver thanks to the kids. Several of the in-laws spent over 45 minutes holding seats for us before the Mass even kicked off. But M. and C. sat and read books quietly most of the time while L. passed from person-to-person and enjoyed the sights and sounds.

We went into church as the first flakes of what promised to be a decent snowstorm drifted down. I thought back to another Christmas Eve in Indy, in 2002, when we were in the midst of a blizzard while in church. That night, you could see waves of snow blowing past the windows during Mass. This time, the storm petered out and only left a dusting on top of all the snow we already had. So the Christmas was white, but it was going to be white anyway based on the last couple weeks’ storms.

We were up a bit late, between Mass and the traditional family meal afterwards. We put the girls to bed close to 9:30, and it was about the easiest night we’ve ever had. They all went to sleep quickly. We gave M. strict orders not to come out of their room before 6:00 AM. They were nice enough not to charge into our room until 6:20. We had them turn on the TV and they gave us another 30 minutes or so of dozing before they came and bugged us again. M. and C. were ready to go, but L. had crawled into bed with us and was more interested in getting some more sleep. While we prepped to go downstairs, she laid in our bed with her arm thrown over her eyes to keep the light out.

Down the stairs we went and, Lo!, Santa had come! The jolly old elf brought some fine gifts for the girls. A Rapunzel tower and Toy Story 3 for all the girls. A Rapunzel doll for M., a fashion Barbie for C., and some dress up dolls for L.. A Toy Story 3 play set. A Lego farm. An Etch-a-Sketch. Some books. We had not loaded up stockings before, but this year we filled them with all kinds of goodies from the dollar aisles at Target. They enjoyed those as well.

Santa brought Ye Olde Blogger an official Kansas City Royals road jersey. No name on the back, thankfully. It would have sucked to have received a Greinke one, no?

Later in the day we hosted a family brunch and then returned to the in-laws for dessert and visiting.

It was a good holiday. The girls were pleased with the gifts. They had each pulled some last minute changes to their lists on us, but were reasonably pleased that what they got didn’t always match what they had been asking for.

Now another week of trying to keep the girls occupied until school starts again. Fortunately, the weather is supposed to improve as the week goes on, so perhaps we’ll be able to get them outside.

I hope you and yours had a fine Christmas as well.

❖