There is nothing like being a parent of a four-year old, a two-year old, and a baby on Christmas Eve. We try to keep it pretty low key, so our traditions are pretty simple. But they involve a great deal of patience with messes and getting off schedule. On a typical day, my patience level is not very high and the kids do their fair share of ignoring us, which often leads to a bit of arguing. Growing up in a large family of red personalities, Christmas Eve usually included an argument of some kind, though we'd always make up and have a wonderful evening. Today, however, our kids were angelic. I couldn't get enough of them. We followed our traditional Christmas Eve schedule:
-Went out for a breakfast of bagels, donuts, or hot chocolate. This morning we went to Einstein's.
-Talked to family by video chat.
-Watched Christmas movies--the old animated Rudolf.
-Made Santa's cookies.
-Took treats to neighbors.
-Made personal pizzas for dinner.
-Acted out the nativity scene while reading Luke 2.
-Set out carrots for Santa's reindeer, including Rudolf and Chet.
-Opened a present--always a pair of PJs and a book. Our son was Toothless, the night fury, with a "How to Train Your Dragon" book. Our daughter got moon PJs and a moon book called, "Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me." Our baby got flower PJs and a ladybug book with a glove of ladybug finger puppets.
-Get into PJs and read the books on our bed.
-Set out hot chocolate and cookies for Santa.
A little anecdote about Christmas traditions. My wife said today that we should start a new tradition of making snowball cookies since this might be the last time we have Christmas in a state with snow. As you can tell from the list above, our current traditions already make for a pretty full day. So, I suggested that we stick with the traditions we have for now and put that one on the list for next year. I remember watching one of my in-laws' old family movies of a Christmas when my wife and her siblings were very little. One of my wife's siblings opened a present on the video and commented, "Too many presents!" I couldn't believe my ears. But traditions are the same way, they are fun at first but can quickly become cumbersome. Thankfully, we still have some room. Today, we filled it with a nice walk/hike with my son in the woods behind our townhome complex and watching a Santa movie with the kids before bed.
Some of the setbacks included forgetting pizza sauce. In the DC area on Christmas Eve it takes an hour to go to the local grocery store to pick up one thing because the traffic and the store lines are so congested. I went anyway. We were also so tired from late nights of preparation that I was falling asleep and didn't have much energy to wrestle with the kids. We decided to sword fight for most of the day instead. Still took a lot of energy, but it was a fun change in the routine. Acting out the nativity went well. We made it through Luke 2 very well, but nobody really acted out their parts. Our baby took off her costume, crawled away, and played with toys, while our two oldest just played with the baby doll in the "manger." Of course, some of the best things, apart from the sword fights, included how snuggly the kids were today. They were tired and snuggly at the restaurant for breakfast, and very snuggly while watching the movie tonight. Our daughter, who is just becoming conversational, was telling us that everyone needs popcorn and that she wants Santa pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. She also told everyone, "I love Daddy" as she snuggled up to me.
My favorite part came after acting out the nativity scene, when we took turns sharing our feelings about the Savior. To our surprise, our 4-yr old said, "I know that Jesus is our big brother and keeps us safe where we belong." He also listened intently to what we had to say. Our 2-yr old also mumbled something. What a sweetheart.
My wife and I put our kids to bed--they were excited to go to bed because Santa won't come unless they are asleep--and began cleaning and laughing about how great our day had been. Now it's off to help Santa get everything ready for tomorrow. I hope our kids don't get up at 4 am, like I used too.
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