Christmas 2013

Elijah and Luca are at the perfect ages for Santa.  In other words, threats to be good.  The mere mention that Santa was going to skip over our house was enough to make their blood run cold. 

I sometimes get carried away.

“Eat your carrots or Santa is going to throw all your presents into Lake Michigan.  Go to bed or Santa will collect all your presents in our yard and set fire to them right in front of you.”

I had to take those to back as jokes. 

Christmas Eve came with the idea of going to afternoon Mass.  Diana was 100% into going for 5 whole minutes.  Elijah and Luca were up for it, if only to see who this Jesus fellow was everyone keeps talking about.  I was up for it until fifteen minutes before, when I saw the boys had no intention of being anything up naked.  I asked forgiveness like a true part time Christian and opened a bottle of wine.

Cousins and Grandpa arrived.  We ate pigs in blankets and ate Rits crackers and cheese and had a generally great time.

The boys went to bed with the supreme threat of do not leave your room or Santa will only deliver the heads of your action figures.

It was silent for 25 minutes when I heard Eli on the steps.

“You are on thin ice, mister.”

“Luca pooped, Dad!”

Touché, boys.  I got Luca cleaned and into bed again and Diana, her dad and I did the waiting game.  The boys finally stopped thrashing at around 10pm and we set out the Santa gifts.  We went to bed early, knowing there was no force on earth that could keep them in bed past 6am.

At 1am, Diana woke up in a cold sweat.  She realized she had forgotten two vital Santa presents in the basement of the wine store. 

I said, “Well that sucks.  No sense in ruining our Christmas Eve for plastic Light Sabers and Bat Caves.  We’re going, aren’t we.”  Diana was afraid the two toys would ruin the existence of Santa for them.  Unlike revealing Santa’s fakeness in a blog.

We raced back and forth to the store and slept like fiends for the next two hours until the boys awoke.

Christmas morning was filled with the joy of shredded paper, unopenable packaging and one of the scariest pairs of slippers known to man.

In other words, it was awesome yet again.