Christmas Eve 2007

Though very nice at the end, our Christmas Eve was more stressful than I wanted. I'd dreamed of having everything done in advance so that I could enjoy a peaceful day with the children before our Christmas Eve church service.

Instead, I spent most of the morning doing research on a quality toy tool workbench to replace the flimsy Home Depot one we'd originally purchased right after Thanksgiving. Lesson for next year: Put together toys well in advance of Christmas Eve so that in case you're not pleased with the quality you can return it with plenty of time to spare. Most of the presents we'd gotten well in advance. We just hadn't bothered to put the big toys together, or wrap anything for that matter.

Since the tool workbench is the only thing Alexander had asked Santa for, I felt a little desperate to find one for him. My research took up most of the morning, and the children made it very stressful because they argued a lot and just generally got into a lot of trouble. Maybe I had a shorter tolerance for it all since I was a bit stressed anyway. I finally found a Little Tikes workbench that had good reviews and was still in stock at one of our local stores.

I also had to bathe the children in time for us to meet Mikel at noon. He and Alexander had a hair-cutting appointment downtown, and then he took them out to eat. I dropped off both children with him and went back to the stores to fight the crowds.

By the time I picked the children back up from his office, we had just enough time to drive back home and bake cookies for Santa before heading back out again. We had to be at our church by 4:30 p.m. in order to find a seat for the 5 p.m. Christmas Eve service, which featured a mass choir and full orchestra. It was a beautiful service, and the children behaved pretty nicely.

After church we had a simple dinner at home and let the children open one present each — a pair of Christmas pajamas. They put them on and Mikel read The Night Before Christmas, and then we sang Silent Night before putting the children to bed.

Then Mikel and I were up late finishing up the building of bigger presents and arranging them in front of the tree. The new toy tool workshop was a lot sturdier and worth the extra money. It is so true that you get what you pay for. We also ordered Anna a big play kitchen from the Little Tikes Web site. That had been sitting in our garage for a while before we put it together two nights before Christmas. Everything turned out great on the kitchen, except for the fact that it took a good three hours or so to put together. Mikel even had to break out his power drill to drill through some of the heavy plastic in order to get the screws in properly. Boy, the way they make toys these days.....

Here are a few pre Christmas photos, including the putting together of the first flimsy tool bench, the reading of The Night Before Christmas, the taking of Santa's milk and plate of cookies to the table, and the opening of the Christmas PJs.

By the way, didn't the hairstylist do a good job on Alexander's hair? Mikel had cut it himself the past two times and didn't do as well as he did that first time over the summer. He was in desperate need of a new cut.