A Mommy Story

We have survived round two of the Holiday Marathon. Christmas Day went well, with only a few snags.

Last night was rough – Cordy was overtired from being up too late. I’ve never understood being overtired, probably because I never pass up a chance for sleep. But apparently being overtired means that you’re too tired to sleep, and so every hour Cordy was awake, shrieking for us to rescue her from her crib prison. It finally ended around 3am and she slept until 7am.

This morning, we got more bad news. My mom stayed with us last night and she planned to get up with Cordy this morning. However, when Cordy woke up, mom came in and told us that she had been up since 4am with the stomach flu, and she couldn’t take Cordy. No big deal for us to get up, but sadly my mom missed the entire Christmas Day and stayed upstairs in bed. She was too weak to drive home, so she’s staying with us tonight as well. She feels miserable. All of her gifts are still downstairs, waiting to be opened.

With mom out of commission, getting everything together and ready was left to us and my aunts. Since my mom and Aunt Dona were in charge of food, I had no idea what needed to be done to prepare the food, and Aunt Dona had no idea where anything was in my kitchen. It made for a slightly frustrating morning. Until then I never realized how much my mother did to keep things running smoothly on Christmas. Everything finally came together, the meal was prepared, and MY what a meal it was! Ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, fresh rolls, beets, cranberry sauce, and FOUR types of pie!

The gift opening was only slightly controlled chaos. While we used to always take turns opening one gift at a time, this year we saw Cordelia’s mountain of presents and decided to open a few of hers each time. Cordelia, for the most part, was uninterested in the opening of gifts, preferring to beg for mommy’s attention and throw her stacking cups around the room.

The child made out like a bandit: a toy workbench to pound pegs into, more Little People, a hand knit sweater, tons of really cool books (Aunt Dona is a librarian), and so much more. The most appreciated gifts were the hand knit sweater and the donation to her 529 college savings account.

After keeping my secret for far too long, Aaron opened his gifts and was thrilled to get an iPod. In black, no less. Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been sneaking around to all of our relatives, asking them to contribute towards this gift. I certainly couldn’t afford it on my own, and it was really the only thing he was asking for. Many people pitched in and made it possible, and I was so happy that we could get this for him. At this moment, he’s still uploading CDs to iTunes, and trying to figure out how to get video onto it. Saying he loves it is an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in bed with us tonight.

We also were given several gift certificates for dinner at restaurants we love. The gift of eating out – yay!

Stay tuned. The next post will be my Christmas Gifts Hall of Shame. There are always some truly hideous gifts each year, and this year did not disappoint.