A quiet Christmas

We had a good day today. We were up at 7:30, ate cinnamon rolls (which came out darn well if I do say so myself) and helped the children open presents. After that, K was happily busy the rest of the day playing with her loot and we made phone calls to family and did exciting things like nap. We ended the day with cheese fondue for dinner, bathtime and an easy bedtime.

I guess this is a sign that I'm really a grownup, because since we're seeing most of our family next week, and B and I are planning to get a new tv as a gift to each other, there were very few presents for the adults. And yet I'm okay with that. Getting stuff is nice, but there's nothing I want so badly that I mind not having it. I was just happy that everything I got K was a huge hit.

Now last night, mind you, was one of those nights where you wish your children would grow up faster. We went to the Christmas Eve service at church, and wound up walking with Alec at the back of the sanctuary for most of the service, added to the dubious milestone of the first time I ever had to march K out of the room to give her a stern lecture on proper behavior (she wanted to run between where I was sitting in the pews to where B was with Alec, you see. I was helpfully told later by someone that this church is very child-friendly and people don't mind children running around, but it's going to take major tranquilizers before I'm okay with my child running up and down the center aisle during a service). I remember hearing a sermon on Christmas once where the minister talked about "feeling Christmas," and that's what I kept thinking about when I looked at K last night: she was feeling Christmas, in a big way. Honestly, given that's she four and it was Christmas Eve, she wasn't bad at all. But while little kids make Christmas morning really fun, I was missing the quiet Christmas Eves we had pre-children where we went to the late service and then left to go into a cold, quiet starry night and go home and drink mulled cider.

It was worth it, though, when during the children's message the minister was asking the children what animals live in a stable and K piped up "Unicorns!" I had given her a stuffed unicorn the day before as a way of smoothing out a bad day by giving her a present early. It was a huge hit, and she sang in the children's choir last night with her unicorn clutched in her arms.

That's children in a nutshell, isn't it? Transcendently wonderful and hair-pullingly awful, often with the same five minutes. But they're by far the best present I could get: