Christmas Week

Christmas Eve started out good--James took the kids out for the afternoon so that I could get some baking done and have some time to myself.  I listened to the entire two CD recording of the Nine Lessons and Carols from the King's College Choir in Cambridge, England, and it was fantastic!  And no children were around to tell me how boring the music was.  When that was over, I listened to Voice Male's Jingles 2 album, cranked up really loud, much louder than I ever let my kids listen to music when they're around.  By the time everyone else got home, I was absolutely stoked for the evening ahead.

Unfortunately, that was about the highlight of the evening.  To say it all went downhill from there is no understatement.

This was the kids' happiest moment of the night, showing off their new PJ's.  You can see already that Preston needs to go to bed..

We lit the Advent candles.  Dallin and Sariah fought over who got to light the big, white Christ candle in the middle.  Dallin ended up pouting on the stairs, refusing to speak to anyone.  Meanwhile, we're supposed to sit down and read the Christmas story and sing carols and generally have a lovely, warm, happy family time.

We pressed forward anyway.  I figured Dallin would join us after a few minutes, which he did.  Preston started fussing and crying because he was tired.  This escalated to screaming, so James ended up taking him upstairs to bed.  This left me with the other two kids, one of whom wasn't speaking.  The other of the two decided she wasn't in the mood for anythingl quiet and reverent, and our little Christmas devotional, though short, was exceptionally boring.  And she needed to make this fact very, very clear to anyone within earshot.  I stubbornly tried to keep going, singing by myself, reading above the disruptive din of the one who thought it was all boring.  The disruptive din got louder and louder.  Dallin mellowed out and calmed down, but Sariah was just getting revved up.  I finally wised up to the fact that this whole thing was pointless.   I gave her two opportunities to change her behavior, but in the end, I put everybody to bed, with the promise that we'd do this in the morning before any gifts were opened.  She was sad and mad, but it was for the best.  I knew they were all tired and wired.

The next morning, when they woke up at 6:30 am and wanted to hurry downstairs to see what Santa brought, we gathered everyone in on our bed and read the Christmas story and sang all the songs I had planned.  Dallin immediately figured out that things would go faster if he just participated.  Sariah took a bit longer, but eventually she knew we meant business, and I even caught her singing (though she was trying to make us think she wasn't participating).

So I guess this could go down in history as my worst Christmas Eve ever, and yes I did cry over it, and Sariah scolded me for crying about it.  But Christmas Day was lovely and all but made up for the night before. 

Preston got a walker wagon.

Dallin loved his sled, though he won't be using it for quite some time since he jumped fell and fractured his ankle a few days after Christmas.

He also loved his BYU cougar pillow pet.

Preston really got into opening gifts!

Sariah tried to wear practically all her gifts at once.  She has on her new PJ's, the fairy skirt and veil Santa brought her, her new snow boots, the necklaces Dallin gave her, and the bows Grandma gave her.  But I think she looks awesome! 

We tried hard to tone down the gifts this Christmas, and I feel that we mostly succeeded.  We limited the number of gifts they got, and each child got several practical gifts.  One gift idea that I'm especially thrilled with was for Sariah:  I got her several "real", child-sized cooking utensils from a Montessori supplies website--she got a little cheese grater/juicer, vegetable brush, chopping knife, and peeler.  She has had great fun with all of these this week, since she loves to cook.

I got a new dress from James, and since I have very few pictures of myself, I thought I'd show it off.  (Though I actually am very critical of pictures of myself....)

Preston in his adorable new outfit from Grandma.

The final Christmas nature table.  Alas, the paperwhites bloomed the day AFTER Christmas.  Go figure.

On December 27th, we celebrated the last night of Hanukkah.  We were supposed to go to a party, but the hostess got sick, so we had our own little one at home. 

Lighting the Menorah.  There is NO fighting over candles when each child has their own menorah with NINE candles on it.  I think Jewish people were pretty smart to come up with that custom!

We played dreidel with Skittles.  I was so impressed that Dallin remembered the Hebrew characters!

The rest of this week has been very, very busy.  I am feeling more optimistic than I was when I last posted, but still fairly overwhelmed with so many things needing my attention and not enough time to complete everything.  My house is still not clean.  Will it ever be?  I have spent hours this week getting ready for a new year of Primary on Sunday.  I have spent hours preparing a four-week gluten-free menu for us to try, and also stressing about Preston's milk allergy and knowing that I should also be making that menu dairy-free, but not being completely ready to do it.  Between Primary and homeschooling and teaching organ and Preston' speech therapy and now adding food allergies and new diets on top of it, as well as a renewed effort to live within a budget (James and I are thinking about doing Dave Ramsey's program for better finances), it's overwhelming.   Gluten-free food is mega expensive, so that means cooking almost completely from scratch.  With all my loads of spare time.

In spite of it all, I always love a fresh new year, and I'm feeling surprisingly OK with life.  I can do this!