Christmas (Warning... The adventures of Santa Claus!)

     We had a wonderful, crazy Christmas! On the 23rd Josh and I went to finish up the shopping because I had procrastinated and decided to have ALL the stress the last week. I soon realized why that was NOT smart. Some of what we wanted was gone and I about gave myself a nervous breakdown trying to keep track of who was getting what, if they all had about the same number of gifts, and that nasty word that some call "budget" (however we call it an ice cream social b/c Shane bribes me with icecream to work on it!) . That night we got to have my darling cousin Grace come and stay with us from Texas before she drove down to see Grandma the next day. That girl is so fun and absolutely beautiful inside and out! In all of my Christmas excitement about having company and FINALLY being finished Christmas shopping, I stayed up until 2:00 a.m and conned Shane into staying up to help me. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. So the next night, the REAL Christmas Eve, we were exhausted. I knew that if I took a power nap that night, I wouldn't wake up, but Shane was convinced that he needed one, however he promised he'd "wake right up" when it was time for the magic to start. At about 12:30, all the kids were asleep and I could not keep my eyes open so I knew it was time to get the party started. I went to wake Shane up and tried THREE times, but he just mumbled and kept sleeping! Finally, I threatened, "I guess I'll just have to be Santa all by myself." to which he mumbled, "okay." and kept sleeping. I felt sorry for him since it was my fault he was so tired so I hurried and set up stockings and put out presents. I  was almost done except for a couple of big presents out in the car. I live in Mayberry, but I was convinced that I would get attacked in the dark in my driveway. I had to really talk myself into going out there to get those presents. I heard the girls bunkbed squeak as if Emma might be climbing down so I knew I needed to hurry. I left the front door open so the family could hear my blood curdling screams if I was being murdered. Finally I took off running and threw open the trunk to grab the gifts. In shock, I looked in the trunk to discover that the gifts weren't in there. I hurried and slammed the trunk shut, but it wouldn't shut! It just made a LOUND BAM! and bounced right back up. I fiddled with the latch and slammed it extra hard the next time....BAM! It bounced up again. I was outside my kids bedroom window,the front door was WIDE open, the gifts were half set out and I was slamming the trunk up and down!!! After about 5 tries, I ran back in the house to get Shane, but my cat beat me in where she immediately ran to my parent's dog's crate in my front-room, (also outside my kids bedroom) and starts taunting the dog. I was just sure that ANY minute the dog was going to start barking and I still didn't know know where the other presents were!!! I flew into my bedroom where I shout-whispered (you moms know what a shout-whisper is... It's an "I mean business" whisper reserved for the times when you want to scream your head off,but you can't) at Shane that he HAD to get up and help me. He was basically dazed and confused and tried to calm me down and take his sweet time waking up. I ran to the garage while he was still rambling and began searching for the presents, which I found and set up by the time he put the cat downstairs. When I sat out the stuff, Josh's Santa pile looked pretty skimpy, but I was too sleep deprived to really think much about it.  When we got back in our room, I babbled to Shane about a new job he applied for and anything I could possibly worry about (that's what I do when I'm sleep deprived, which is probably why Shane tries not to be awake when I'm in that state of delusional hysteria!) Shane soothed all my fears and listened to my rants about him not waking up to help me and we FINALLY got to sleep.  We had MAYBE a couple of hours of sleep when we heard all the kids in the front room with my parents. We looked at the clock, it was 4:30 AM! We stumbled out to find most of the kids awake and ready to start Christmas. I NEVER let them get up that early and I'm Miss Control Freak (I know you're shocked to hear that!) about how things are done. I live to see the look of joy on their little faces when they first enter the room. Let's just say that I didn't feel the joy yet!  My eyes were burning from lack of sleep and I could barely see where I was going! I wasn't feeling especially loving to Josh who woke them all up!  I knew my parents would probably smack me if I yelled at everyone to go back to sleep. Even though THEY were on my naughty list for thinking it was 6:30 and not sending the kids back to bed when they woke them up BEFORE us. But hey, they're the Grandparents, they can get away with anything! I tried to make the kids wait to open the  presents, but then the excitment caught up to me and I finished waking up. Ooooh I'm totally adding this later, but I forgot to mention that I took Daniel shopping with me when I bought a lot of the toys because I had noone to watch him. I told him that the toys would disappear and that we would have to see if Santa brings them at Christmas and that we were just choosing what we were "asking" for. (Lame, I know! I guess I thought the kid was dumb or something!). Anyway, as I stood there waking up and the kids were looking at what Santa brought, Daniel was shouting, "Hey mom! Remember when we bought these toys!". I was talking him out of it and changing the subject fast! Later that evening, I realized why Joshua's pile had looked so skimpy. He picked out a way cool sled that he was SO EXCITED about when we went shopping, however I totally forgot about it in my hysteria   I was staring at his old snowboard and thinking how I wished it would snow more so he could us it and I remembered the sled! I ran and apologized to him, but he just laughed as said he wondered about it since he was there when I bought it. He thought that maybe I had taken it back or something. I was so proud of him and that made up for him waking everyone up at 4:30 am. Even though his "Santa" pile was way small and he was missing something he had really wanted and thought he was getting, he didn't complain at all. He was completely grateful for what he got and he was happy for everyone else and their gifts. It's at times like this that I think my kids might survive having a crazy mom after all!