My poor, poor children. Do you know what their horrible mother made them do? Wait until the completely unbearable hour of 8:30 to open presents Christmas morning! Oh the agony! Oh the torture! Oh the complete and utter wretchedness of it all! But I was soooo tired, I just couldn't get out of bed any earlier. Believe you me, they tried their darndest to get me up, but it just wasn't happening. Finallly, finally, though that great, timeless motivator, Mother Guilt, got me out of bed and into the living room with a smile plastered on my face, ready to face all that unbridled little kid excitement.
In our family we have a time honored ritual of how we open presents. One person chooses a present from under the tree, any present, so long as it isn't intended for him/her, and gives it to the recipient. We all watch as that person opens the present and admires the contents inside. If it is a book, the person is even allowed time to flip through a few pages, read the back cover, etc. Then whoever opened the last present, chooses a new present for someone else to open. Factor in 8 people, overly generous parents, and a Santa who just had to reward all those good Charles children on his list, and it is easy to see why it took until 11:30 to finish opening all the gifts.
The kids had snacked a bit on what was in their stockings, but had no other food for breakfast, so they were STARVING by the time we got through. At one point, I offered to make something while we took a break in the present opening, but that idea was voted down immediately. They had already waited so long to get started, they weren't taking any chances that it would get stopped prematurely. About 10:45 Sarah laid down on the floor, moaning that her stomach hurt and she was too weak to open any more presents. We sliced her apple up that Santa brought in her stocking, and she perked up enough to stick around for the grand finale. 🙂
Chris was also very on top of things, grabbing a brand new garbage bag and placing it to the side of his chair just before the unwrapping started. The kids took off the paper and bows, he picked it up and put right in the bag. No clean up later necessary. Hurray!
But the best part of the whole day was how extremely grateful and kind everyone was about their gifts. Seriously, we both noticed it and commented on it to each other, and then praised the kids later for being so polite and loving about every single gift they received. The kids spontaneously hugged whoever had given them the gift they just opened, or called out "Thank you!" for those on the other side of the ocean.
It was so, so nice. No complaining that it was the wrong thing, no jealousy that someone else got something better, nothing! We couldn't believe it. Somebody should have filmed it to use in a sappy Hallmark commercial, it was that perfect. And since it may not happen again, I am recording it here as proof that they are capable of such behavior. haha
I hadn't really planned on anything specific for breakfast, other than hot chocolate to drink out of the new mugs Sophie made everyone. So I took a poll, and decided on omelets, scrambled eggs, bread, juice, and of c
ourse, the hot chocolate. Everyone devoured their food, starving as they were, and then went off to play with all their new goodies. But now it was lunchtime, time for the big fancy Christmas feast, and not a single person was hungry. So we ate the homemade raviolis and ham for dinner instead. They were delicious, and my new ravioli tray from Tupperware worked great. Hurray!
We rounded out the day with lots of video chats to extended family around the globe. Technology is such a wonderful, amazing thing. My brother just sat the laptop on my parents' kitchen table, and it was like I was right there hanging out with all the rest of them. What a wonderful way to keep the homesickness at bay. Merry Christmas Everyone!