Christmas

I felt like I had to get our Christmas pictures up before the end of the year. I don't have much to say about Christmas. The kids had a lot of fun. Emmy is finally to the age where she really enjoys opening the gifts. So, for the first time all three of the kids were really hip to Christmas and it made it exponentially more exciting for Jon and me.
Isobel seems to be getting wise to the Santa game and I am convinced this will be her last year of being a true believer. She really is way more observant than we gave her credit. She did, however, try very hard to explain away the inconsistencies.

For instance, Jon wraps the stocking stuffers (this is not something that occurred when I was a child, but this is his tradition, so more power to him). One night he said to me "You know I used the same wrapping papers for the stocking stuffers as I did for the gifts. Do you think they will notice?" We decided that Isobel may notice, but she would probably be too excited to really notice. First thing Christmas morning, okay second thing Christmas morning... Isobel is opening her stocking stuffers and turns to me and says

"Wow, mom I can't believe that Santa has enough time to wrap these at our house."

"What are you talking about? Santa didn't wrap these at our house."

"Well, that's strange... I guess Santa has the same wrapping paper."

Oops.... I probably should have covered that one a little better. I guess this is the beginning of the daughter being smarter than the mom.

A few minutes later Emmy was opening one of her stocking stuffers which happened to be a three pack of those Crayola Tadoodles crayons (which she loves). As she is ripping open the gift Isobel's eyebrow cocks and she looks at me, then at Jon, then back at me...

"Um, Dad... I thought you got those for Emmy?" She asked timidly.

"What?" We ask, hoping to change the subject promptly.

"Well, I was with you at Target when you bought those, so I don't think they are really from Santa." She looks between us for a few more seconds and finally shrugs and says "maybe it got mixed in with Santa's gifts on accident."

"That must be it..." I jumped at the chance to end that conversation.

I think she probably still has a few good years of pretending for Eli and Emmy, but I think that her rational side will win this fight and she will not be a believer come next Christmas.

Just another reminder that she is growing up way to fast...

Isobel and Eli got new bikes from Santa... they were psyched!

This was by far Eli's favorite gift of the Holiday... he slept with it almost every night for a week.

We are absolute horrible parents... we totally wrapped all of Emmy's gifts without leaving one out from Santa. It was a complete oversight, but it meant she didn't have a big gift under the tree. We took one that she opened at the very end of the night and put it under the tree hoping that Eli and Bel wouldn't notice. We are very lucky they were so excited about their bikes, or we would have been in trouble... It probably would have been the straw that broke Isobel's Santa believing back. No need to fret friends, Emmy was not totally neglected... she received a lot of wonderful gifts that she thoroughly enjoyed... although not as much as she enjoyed the actual process of unwrapping them.