Somehow, we survived another Christmas.

As my dad reminded me, Christmas anxiety (especially in children) manifests itself in many forms. The kids, God bless ’em, have been fighting non-stop for almost two weeks now. Both kids are equally guilty. Half the time, Mason starts it by taking a toy away from Morgan or simply teasing her. Morgan lacks Mason’s finesse; when she starts it, it’s usually with a hard slap on bare skin or a bite. Sometimes they both start it by arguing over ridiculous things like who’s going to sit where or who gets the first glass of milk. Regardless of who starts it, it generally ends with the two of them running and screaming through the house as fast and as loud as possible. Morgan usually gets the worst of this deal — being younger she’s also less coordinated, which means these high speed chases typically end in her falling down or running into something. Occasionally though she bests Mason with a clawing scratch or a well-thrown toy that brings the boy down.

For two weeks, we’ve been spanking, grounding, and putting children in time out on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s hard to remember just how exciting Christmas is for the little ones. Saturday morning, we finally told Mason, “look — Santa can see you and he’s not happy. Knock it off.” A few minutes later, Susan and the kids left the house and stopped by a convenient store. Coincidently, while inside the store, Susan ran into a guy in a pretty convincing Santa outfit. After a bit of talking, Susan convinced the guy to come outside and have a one-to-one talk with Mason. With his finger pointed, Santa told Mason that he knew what he’d been doing with Morgan, and that he had better straighten up before Christmas. Susan told me later Mason’s eyes were as big as saucers! Things settled down a bit around the house after that.

Christmas Eve rolled around and this year we decided to try something different by splitting up our party and doing half at our house and then half at Susan’s sister’s house which is just around the corner. Our half of the party consisted of a lot of snack foods and desserts, most of which were mushy (which met my dietary needs; I’m still on a soft food diet for one more week due to my recent surgery). When everyone migrated to the second half of the party I stayed back at the house, assisting Santa in some late night bicycle assembly …

Early Christmas morning I crept out into the living, searching for signs of disturbed toy piles. Nothing; I was the first one up. I got the video camera ready and snapped the battery into place. That minute sound jolted both kids out of bed. “Santa” had left bicycle helmets outside of each kids door, which both of them stepped over and completely ignored. (In their defense, our house is like a toy minefield; stepping over toys has become second nature to all of us.) When they got to the living room I said, “go back and look at your doors, I think Santa left something there!” This made Mason excited and Morgan cry. After a bit of prodding they found the helmets, the bikes, and everything else that Santa had left behind.

After ripping through mounds of presents and wrapping paper, Dad showed up a little after 7am and the kids and I exchanged gifts with him. Our yearly tradition of dad cooking waffles has been ruined by Susan’s and my lapband surgeries, but we adapted and had eggs and bacon instead (the kids had pancakes as well). Around an hour later, Linda, Doug and Griffin stopped by, ate breakfast, and exchanged gifts as well. Despite the cool 40 degree weather and howling winter wind, the kids strapped on bicycle helmets and hit the road on their bikes.

After naptime, we loaded up the car and went over to mom’s for more gift exchanging and visiting. We had a good dinner and a good visit.

On the way home, we drove through the Yukon Christmas lights display one last time. For the first time in two weeks, the kids were calm. There’s a small train ride that, for two bucks, will take you up close and personal to all the Christmas displays. Although it was freezing cold (and I was wearing shorts), we rode the train. The kids had a great time looking at the lights. All was calm, all was bright.

Click here to view all our Christmas 2007 pictures.

Here is a video montage of our Christmas morning festivities.

Merry Christmas, everybody!