Visions of Sugarplums

Now that Max and Molly are a little older, they're really starting to enjoy and participate in the holidays. Molly is a little young yet, but this year Max has been totally into all things Christmas - Santa Claus, Rudolph, Christmas trees, the nativity story, making and receiving cards and gifts, etc. Being able to experience all these things through my children's eyes makes Christmas "magical" again for me too. It is so much fun watching them get excited and curious and enjoying themselves. I remember loving advent calendars when I was little.

Early in the month I purchased a wooden advent house for Max and Molly, which has a door/cubby for each day of the month. Every day I'd hide two small chocolates in the cubby and Max and Molly each got to take a turn opening a door and removing a treat. I thought they would enjoy this, but didn't realize how much they would LOVE it. It was the first thing they wanted to do every morning when they got up (even though we never let them do it until after dinner). We also checked lots of Christmas books and DVDs out of the library and brought out our little stash of Christmas books, CDs, and toys. So, Max and Molly have had a good month to enjoy all things Christmas (and cajole us into playing "Jingle Bells" approximately 3,234 times).

This year I really wanted to make sure I set aside the time to do all the fun holiday things that sometimes get thrown to the wayside or crammed into the corners. I made sure to start my vacation on the 23rd this year, so I wasn't spending all of Christmas Eve day running around like a lunatic (I made sure to do that on the 23rd!). For the first time in recorded history, we actually started wrapping presents before 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve (we only started a day earlier, but still!). We finished up all of our grocery shopping and odd errands yesterday and had all day today to prepare for Christmas. Which, on our case, meant making lots and lots and lots of food!

Max remembered making gingerbread cookies last year and had already asked if we could make them again. I also always want to make and decorate sugar cookies, but never seem to get around to it, so I promised myself we'd make those as well. I whipped up the sugar cookie dough last night and put together the gingerbread dough this morning. After Max and Molly got up from their naps (even if, in Max's case, he didn't actually sleep), we decided to roll out some dough and make some cookies!

I always have to remember that cooking with small children is not a precision art! Our gingerbread cookies were a little smooshy, contained an awful lot of finger indentations, and tended to sport multiple sets of eyes, but Max and Molly had a lot of fun making them. I also noticed that most of the candy buttons and currant eyes that the kids used for decorating didn't actually make it onto the gingerbread cookies. Molly was also pretty adept at filching scraps of dough when she thought I wasn't looking. When we put the cookies into the oven, they kept peering in the door and anxiously waiting for the cookies to be done. The wait for the cookies to cool off was apparently agonizing, but both kids seemed satisfied with the end product. As Molly put it, "I LIKE gingerbread cookies!"

After dinner we let Max and Molly open the big door on the advent house, where we had hidden the small, wrapped presents that they had gotten for each other (of course, they didn't remember what they'd gotten for each other). They unwrapped the little presents to find two little zoom cars, which they happily played with until it was time for bed. All evening Max was talking about Santa Claus and kept asking when Santa Claus (and Rudolph) were coming to his house -- he was so excited! We explained to him that Santa only came on Christmas Eve night and only if Max was sleeping. Max and Dad spent some time peering out the front window to see if they could see Rudolph yet. Max seemed pretty convinced that Santa was bringing him a present!

When it was time for bed, Max and Molly got dressed up in their holiday pjs and we settled in for our bedtime stories. Max and Molly get a new Christmas book every Christmas Eve -- this year's book was "Room for a Little One." We read that, as well as the traditional "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." I think this was the first year that we made it through story time without lots of fussing and crying (and, of course, it was the only year that we didn't take a picture!). Max was so excited that it took him a while to fall asleep -- he started talking about how Santa and Rudolph were going to come to his house and then talking about all the things he'd say to them. We had to explain that they were coming when he was asleep and they'd have to leave before he woke up, because they had to bring presents to other boys and girls.

After the little kids finally nodded off, Dad and I enjoyed our traditional Christmas Eve clam chowder and watched a good hunk of "It's a Wonderful Life" (which just happens to be my favorite holiday movie). We finished up the prep for Christmas breakfast, finished the Christmas dinner desserts, completed the present wrapping, tidied the house, and set everything up under the tree. We even had a little time to sit and enjoy the quiet house and the pretty tree before we had find our kerchief and cap and settle in for a (not-so-long) winter's nap!

I can't wait to see Max and Molly's faces when they come downstairs in the morning and see that Santa was here!