Back to reality

Yesterday was Dia De Los Reyes so for us the holidays are officially over. We took down the tree and all the Christmas decorations today. The kids will be back to school tomorrow so it's gonna be a hectic morning trying to get into our regular routines again. No more watching movies til the wee hours and sleeping the morning away. I'm going to miss the calm of not having to worry about getting everyone where they need to be on time and taking care of everything during the day when the kids are at school.

I have to say that this was probably the least stressful of all my Christmas'. I was so thankful for that. Although the day before Christmas Eve we had the sewer line back up again but more about that later.

Christmas Eve is when we celebrate, we have dinner, listen to music, dance around the house singing, watch movies and then at midnight we open gifts. The kids play with some of their new toys and then they are off to sleep so that Santa can come and bring them a gift. Christmas morning the kids wake us up to show us what he left them and all the cool things he put in their stockings. They decorated their own stockings this year, I bought these really cool kits, and they were very pleased with them. I always like to have some sort of activity for them to do each holiday, it's always fun. Rosie did hers first and then helped Jonathan with his, she's the crafty one.

I was talking to a friend of mine about our tradition when it comes to Santa; he found it refreshing and said that when he has children he is going to incorporate it into his tradition. My kids know that Santa does not bring video games or things of that nature; he only brings things the elves can make in the workshop. I guess most kids expect that the biggest and most expensive things should come from Santa; I think that idea is a snowball effect of all the marketing and commercialism that people are sucked into during the holidays.

It's actually pretty sad because I feel that it takes away from the magic of Santa, no wonder kids are losing their innocence earlier and earlier. In our house Santa's gift is special because it comes from him, wrapped in special paper and bow. It isn't always the best gift they get but it's the most important one. They realize that Santa doesn't go shopping at the mall to get them the hottest toy on the shelf so when they write to him they tell him about the things they're interested in, more about themselves and the stuff they like doing and Santa brings them something he thinks they'll enjoy. He brought Rosie a bead jewelry making kit because she's into arts and crafts and Jonathan got a Hover Copter because this year he's into things that fly.

New Year's Eve we all stayed in and cuddled up on the sofa and watched movies all day. We didn't do anything special like we did last year, for some reason I just wasn't into the whole thing.

The kids put out their boxes of hay last night and the 3 Kings brought them some candy and a small toy. It's a nice treat and it helps them to remember the real meaning of Christmas...why we have a Christmas to begin with.

Back to the sewer line, well...they came out and rodded it again. This time they told us that the rodder was having trouble getting through because of roots from the neighbors huge tree. Apparently the only way to solve the problem is to dig up the front yard and put in a new line that leads from the house to the street. This job will cost $2,500. Yeah, not what I wanted to hear but if it isn't done it will keep backing up.

Ohhh, I finally tried eggnog for the first time. I never wanted to before just because with a name like that it just wasn't very appealing to me, sorta like grits ( I still haven't tried those yet) but yeah...all I can say is YUK. I wasn't missing anything that's for sure.