Christmas Eve

We had a leisurely morning at home and then went to lunch at Kobe - one of the places where they cook the food in front of you. We thought it would be a fun thing to do with Coralee. I had seen their lunch specials advertised so my assumption was "Woohoo, cheap lunch!" but that was discontinued because of the holidays. Ken wasn't thinking cheap lunch so he was fine. We were seated with a very nice Jewish family - we gathered that from the fact that they said "Happy Hannukah" when the waitress said "Merry Christmas". I'm all for Happy Holidays but the reality was that Hannukah was over and the next day was Christmas. Even if you don't believe in Christ the holiday is a holiday regardless - kind of like Hannukah is for us. Perhaps we could have conversed more with them but between me feeding Lincoln his bottle and the two of us tending to Coralee, that didn't happen. The husband laughed with us at Coralee's cell phone that she insisted on bringing with her purse. It rings when you close it so she'd talk for a bit and then close it and it would ring. I heard myself talking when she said, "Sometimes that happens." which is my answer to many of her questions. We thought Coralee would enjoy the show but she was really freaked out by the fire at the beginning. She did eat well, though. It was her kind of meal - shrimp (again, my girl) and veggies (especially broccoli) and the entertainment of chopsticks.

Next on the agenda was the Christmas Eve service at church. The past two years, I've curled her hair for the service and we have an adorable picture of her walking down the hall with curlers in her hair. Hence, the picture of her cute little pony tail swinging around as we rushed out of the house. We were able to sit with our good friends the Mitchells. Coralee & Jacob walked down together to hear the children's sermon (and of course get candy canes). It was SO cute to see them holding hands as they walked down the aisle. We tried to get a picture of the two of them by the tree - whatever on earth are you doing down on one knee, Jacob?

Next we went home and made reindeer cookies for Santa and Coralee got to open up her new jammies. At this point in time, she is pretty stinking tired. Ken gave her a bath and we settled down to read the Christmas story and the Night Before Christmas. Here is where it all went terribly wrong. Okay, I had been stressed for days and/or weeks about making everything perfect from the presents to the budget to the cleanliness of the house to the meals. This was one of those moments where I truly understood why one Easter my mother said, "Dammit, this is supposed to be fun." We usually say that at Easter just to be funny. The reality is that, like my mother, I like to do fun things with my kids (okay so Lincoln isn't doing a lot but he will). I want everyone to be happy and sweet because I put forth this effort to do something fun and instead of happiness, I get a little girl that is pitching a fit. It just didn't fit my perfect, happy mold. Poor little thing, she was so tired and excited that she didn't go to sleep well (again ruining my perfect vision of putting out the toys from Santa with Ken). After I get caught up with blogging pictures, I'm going to write a letter to myself about some things to remember for next Christmas season. One big lesson I learned this year is that, as I read in the Five Love Languages of Children, that "much of childish behavior is unpleasant" really is true. In the end, we did get to put out the gifts and stuff the stockings and it was fun even though it was later than I wanted it to be. Another lesson for next year is to remember to stage the pictures of us reading to them. While it was an unhappy moment (as it has been in year's past), pictures of us reading don't lead to happy faces.