Over the last 24 hours we have been busy around here making the yuletide gay. And by gay, I don’t mean that we’ve been listening to Cher. Although we have listened to a little Judy Garland. I mean that we have been festive and full of Christmas cheer.
Not that there is anything wrong with listening to Cher.
Yesterday afternoon, I decided that we needed to decorate some sugar cookies and since this was a spur of the moment decision based mainly on the fact that it was freezing cold and sleeting outside and we desperately needed an activity NOW, I didn’t have time to wait for homemade dough to chill so I reached for my good friend the dough boy and his slice and bake offerings.
I have never seen Caroline as excited as when faced with such a variety of items to make a huge mess with. Oh! the flour! the sparkles! the red hots! the dough! It was an embarrassment of riches.
She focused all of her decorating efforts on one lone, candy cane shaped cookie and having emptied the entire container of colored sugars decided she was done. I’d like to say it was totally worth the huge amount of cleanup involved, but I think that might be a lie.
Then, this morning we had Breakfast with Santa Claus and I made a huge error in judgement by creating a buzz about it last night, so this morning she was up at 5:30 yelling “Mama, let’s go see Santa. Let’s go eat with Santa!”. By the time Gulley and her gang finally arrived to pick us up at 8:30, we were more than ready to go.
During the course of the morning I can guarantee that I made her aware of the fact that Santa was watching at least 154 times which would buy me maybe 30 seconds of quiet obedience. Maybe 30 seconds.
Gulley and I have a term we use to describe docile, gentle children. We call them “cup-pourers”. The name is derived from the little kids who sit on the edge of the baby pool in the summer time and are perfectly content to just fill their little nesting cups with water and then dump them out and then fill their cups and dump them out, while their mamas get to visit and drink a beer and have enjoyable adult conversation.
Gulley and I have not given birth to “cup-pourers”. This fact is confirmed every summer at the pool as we chase our kids as they run from one end of the pool to the other and it was confirmed again this morning as we chased them all over the country club while waiting for Santa and breakfast. At one point I even looked and thought why is that rope line holder about to fall over and realized it was because all three of our kids were trying to swing on it. And so here we go again with “Santa is right there watching you”.
We’d like to complain, but seeing as how neither of us could be classified as a “cup-pourer”, it would stand to reason that neither would our precious offspring.
So after a morning of sitting on Santa’s lap, eating some French Toast sticks drowned in maple syrup, and my futile attempts to get a decent picture of the three of them in front of the Christmas tree we headed home.
Gulley had fit all three carseats in her backseat, so on the way there we had talked about how great it would be to take all the kids to Bryan together. Then, on the way home listening to Caroline and Jackson argue throughout the entire 20 minute drive about who was strong enough to pull a helicopter out of the sky, we decided that maybe that trip could wait another year or five.
All in all it’s been a very merry 24 hours and the best part is that right now Caroline is in her room sleeping in heavenly peace. I’m about to do the same. And although all this merry making has worn me out, there is nothing better than spending time with best friends.