Christmas Morning

The wonder of Christmas never gets any bigger than in the eyes of children on Christmas Morning. It's chaos, pure joy and overwhelming. As usual, we were awoken early to "get the party started," but I give them credit that it was 8:00 a.m. rather than the previous record of 6:00.

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Santa had left his gifts unoppened in the family room and the scamper of the kids down the stairs was soon accompained by the screaming and yelling. Miss A was nearly jumping out of her skin; the Barbie Dream House was there in all it's glory. As my husband said, we now own two houses and one has an elevator, sweet. M and C's Santa gifts were a little smaller (I don't like the big guy in the red suit to get all the credit, thus their big gifts were wrapped and under the tree).

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Miss A was barely able to contain her joy. In fact, we had to remind her to open her other gifts as she was too busy playing with the Barbie Dream House. "I must have been really good this year!" she said. She loved all of her gifts. A new Art Center for the basement was a hit as were the new jammies and her own pink watering can.

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Mr. C, poor soul, had to wait until his last gift to open his Video Camera. While he was thrilled with the Husker Snuggie and the clothes and wii games, I think he was getting a little nervous that there wasn't anything "big" under the tree. Lets just say there are alot of movie production going on in our house this week.

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Miss M finally has her own radio/alarm to get her up the morning. Not only can she listen to her Ipod in the unit, she can program it to wake her up to a specific song. I think P might have gotten a little jealous at this point over the technology his kids have and he lacks. She was beyond thrilled with Wii Fit and balance board along with her new Dance Wii game. She'll be sweating this winter. The fact that she had some bucks to spend at Justice, new clothes, and a nail polish extravaganza were big bonus points.

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The parents as usual were thrilled with thier new clothes, gadgets and thoughtful gifts from family. They really get as excited about the small little gifts like board games, fuzzy pj bottoms, walkie talkies and barbies as anything else.

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The gifts they gave too each other and to us brought them nearly as much joy as receiving the gifts. Miss A gave C the biggest hug for her new "cell phone walkie talkies" Miss M squelled when she saw the fuzzy slippers from C and Dad was so thrilled with his polka dot boxers from the kids.

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While deep down you could take all these gifts away from us and not rob us of any of the real joy of Christmas, there is just something about unbridled joy of the opening that really gets to me. Oh how grateful I am for this little family of mine.