I had been waiting to take the boys to see Santa this year so my husband could go with us. Jim has never gone with us and, since I fear my time is running out on how much longer they’ll believe, I wanted to have Jim there at least once.  (Though Christopher is only 4, Jacob is 6 and in school. Jacob will be the first to learn there’s no Santa and, like any respectable sibling, will make sure that Christopher knows, too, I’m sure.)

In our infinite wisdom we said to each other, “Let’s do it on Christmas Eve. Yes, the malls will be crowded and the line to see Santa will probably be a mile long but, we’ll be together. It will be fun.” Last night, December 23^rd, Jim came home from work and dropped the bomb on me: “I have to work tomorrow so you’re going to have to take the boys to see Santa by yourself.” Are you kidding me? I’m screwed. No way am I going to tell my four year old he isn’t seeing Santa this year. I had to brave the mall this morning on my own with two very excited boys.

In the pouring rain, I loaded the kids up first thing this morning since Santa was at the mall as early as 9:00am. I wanted to make sure I was going to be as close to the front of that line as possible. As we were driving, there was almost no traffic on the way. I started to get hopeful. Maybe, just maybe we’re getting there early enough to beat the crowds. Sure enough, I pull into the mall parking lot and THERE WERE HARDLY ANY CARS! I even got a spot only a few spaces away from the main entrance. And, IT STOPPED RAINING! Could my luck get any better? I doubted it.

Oh, doubter that I was… to my pleasant surprise there was only one other family getting their photos with Santa! Can you believe this? I stopped and looked around thinking, “Surely, I’m missing where the real line begins.” Nope. No one else was there.  Just that one other family.

We were in and out of the mall to see Santa in less than 30 minutes. Literally. We walked into the mall at 9:09am and got back into the car at 9:36am. And, it still wasn’t raining. I was walking on clouds, I was so thrilled. Patting myself on the back for getting out early, I decided to push my luck and headed to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine. I should have just been grateful for the good fortune I’d been shown at that point and just gone straight home. But, I wasn’t that wise.

I pull into the grocery store parking lot and had to drive around for five minutes before I could find a spot. It started pouring rain. We then head into the liquor store. Why are you taking a four and six year old into the liquor store you ask? Well, judge me all you want, but Mommy needs wine for Christmas Eve and I don’t know when Daddy’s coming home.

On the way in, both boys are jumping into every single puddle they can see and, of course, they see them all. One puddle from the boy on my left and my entire left leg is soaked from the splash. Before I can even ask them to stop, the boy on my right jumps into one and douses my right leg. “Oh well,” I think to myself, “I made it out of the mall in record time. I’ll just change my pants when I get home.”

As we make our way down the very closely lined shelves, my heart was in my throat as both boys were walking down the aisle with their hands held out, touching every bottle they pass.  I reach for a bottle of Beaujolais. I look over at Christopher just in time to see him climbing up onto one of the shelves (he is less than a foot away from me but he’s a quick one) saying, “Here, Mommy, I’ll get this one for you.” I see the bottles on the bottom shelf toppling sideways as he pushes them out of the way with his Spiderman shoe. I was able to grab them before they went crashing and we quickly made our purchase and left.

Again, though my clothes were soaked and my hair was soaked and my makeup was running down my face, I was feeling pretty smug. “I’ll just clean myself up when I get home,” I thought.  I smiled at my good fortune. Then from the back seat, Christopher starts crying and says, “Mommy, I don’t want to throw up.” Two seconds later, up comes the purple and red lollypop he got from Santa. He stops long enough to take a breath and then up comes his breakfast. We are still three blocks from home.

When we got home Christopher insisted I carry him into the house. So, now, not only am I soaked with rain, I’m soaked with puke. All the while doing everything I can to keep from getting it everywhere else as I strip him down. But, I get him cleaned up and snuggled up on the couch. I then spend the next 15 minutes standing outside in the pouring rain, cleaning up puke from the back seat of my van and the booster seat.

But, we made it out of the mall in less than 30 minutes.

Last night, we discovered that Christopher is a sleep walker. I was in my bathroom washing my face when I suddenly hear this strange sound, almost like water running. Jacob, who was in bed but still awake, starts yelling, “Mommy! Come here, quick! Mommy, Mommy!” I come running out of my bathroom to find Christopher standing at the top of the stairs, pajama bottoms and underpants around his ankles, peeing on the top step.

I stood there, trying to decide, “Do I pick him up and run to the bathroom, thus, getting piss all over my upstairs hallway? Or, do I just let him finish and deal with just cleaning up one step? Before I came to a decision, he was done. He pulled up his pants, turned and walked back to his room and crawled into bed.

I was dumbfounded. Jacob started giggling and said, “Mommy, did Christopher just pee?” I started giggling, too and said, “He sure did.” Jacob asked me, “Is he going to have consequences for his actions?” (We never tell the boys they are bad or that they are in trouble, we always tell them there are consequences for their behavior or actions.) I said to Jacob, “No, I don’t think he did that on purpose. I think he was still asleep.” Jacob just sort of looked at my funny, giggled some more and laid back down.

Just about that time, Jim comes walking over to the bottom of the steps and says, “What’s going on?” I said, “I guess Christopher thought the stairs were the toilet?” He looked at me for a minute and we both blew up laughing.  Jim walked up the steps and handed him a towel as we both started cleaning up and he said, “Well, I guess it looked like a toilet.”

Anyone have any words of wisdom on dealing with sleep walkers? I could use some!

Growing up, I was not a big fan of Christmas for reasons I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say it was a stressful time and I didn’t usually enjoy it much once I realized there was no Santa Claus.

It’s different now that I have children. It’s hard not to be excited about Christmas once those little ones believe in Santa and get all jazzed about getting gifts. Christopher already asks me every day, “Is tomorrow Christmas?”

But, I struggle with how to handle what Christmas is about with them. Jim and I agreed before we had kids that we would never go overboard, getting them a ton of gifts and spending too much money each year. So far, we’ve done pretty well. They received no more than five gifts each. They also receive gifts from Grandma, Aunt Mary and Aunt Regina (and Aunt Chris when she was still here) so don’t feel too badly for them… they have had plenty of gifts to open each year!

Last year was the first year that both boys were a bit more aware of the whole idea of Santa and the gifts they would get. We still kept it to a minimum. Each boy got five gifts from Santa and one extra gift. The new bikes were from Mommy and Daddy. This year they started talking about Santa before Thanksgiving!  They even made a Christmas list for the first time. We got one of those sales ads in the newspaper that was all about the toys. I sat with the boys and each of them had a pen. We went through the ad and they marked a “J” or a “C” next to the toys they want. (Remember getting those store catalogues in the mail when we were kids? I marked the heck out of those things with what I wanted!)

This is also the first year I’ve ever done my shopping online. It was nice getting all of that done in less than two hours! It was also more difficult to stay within my five gift limit. I sat there looking at my “cart,” trying to decide how to cut back the ten gifts each I had picked out for them. Then it hit me. They are only little once. They only believe in Santa for so long. Shouldn’t they be able to have at least a Christmas or two of a bit of overindulgence? I wasn’t breaking the bank and I wasn’t using credit that I was going to have to struggle to pay in the New Year. If I’ve learned nothing else over the last couple of years it is that life is too short. I hit “proceed to checkout” without looking back.

Now, the fun has really started for me. I get online to check my email about every thirty minutes to see that Amazon email saying, “Your Amazon order for blah, blah, blah has been shipped!” I love clicking on “Track this item” to see where it is and reading that “Expected Delivery Date” to see when I will have to run outside and hide the box before the boys see it. I am so jazzed about Christmas now.  This evening, I got the first package! I feel like I’m ten years old again… even though I know what’s in the box!

Yes, there will come a time when I will have to explain to my boys that Christmas isn’t about all the gifts you get. There will come a time when we will cut back on the number of presents they receive each year and we will make sure they understand why. We have already put a lot of the focus on what the season is really all about. We are teaching them all about the birth of Christ and we are teaching them that it’s about giving and helping others as well.  They love putting that money in the Salvation Army bucket every time we go to the grocery store.

They will also learn that it’s about family and spending time with people we love.

But, for now, don’t they deserve to just be young and excited about all that loot under the tree that Santa has left for them?  I’ve decided they do. They can be grownups when they grow up. (And I get to be a kid again with them!)

This past Saturday, Jim and I took the boys to a local Lutheran church that was putting on a sort of walk through play. The inside of the church was set up to resemble Bethlehem the night Jesus was born. When we entered, the first room was sort of a welcome area where they had hot cider and cookies. Then you stood in line and waited your turn to walk through the market. To enter you had to go through the gates that were guarded by a Roman soldier. This young man played his part very well. He was unfriendly and harsh, angrily telling us, “Keep up with your group. Come on, move along.” He was very authentic and got a bit of a crinkled eye brow look from Jacob.

We proceeded to walk through the market and each merchant we passed told us what they saw that night, some believing the star meant the birth of the Messiah, others telling us of their skepticism. The tour ended in the sanctuary where the Holy Family sat near the manger (feeding the squirming baby Jesus a bottle).

Jim and I really enjoyed it. The entire tour took about 25 minutes and everyone was very gracious and did their best to keep the boys interested. Christopher seemed to really enjoy it and appeared to be listening as we walked through. At one point, while one of the merchants was telling his tale, Jacob looked up at me and said, loudly, “Why is this taking so long?” Again, the merchant was very gracious and got to his point quickly.

In the end, though, even Jacob enjoyed the singing and watching the baby Jesus in the Sanctuary.

On the way home, I asked Christopher what his favorite part was. He thought for a minute and said, “I really liked the soldiers! I like their swords!” Jim and I looked at each other and sort of laughed and Jim asked him, “Wasn’t there anything else you liked about seeing Bethlehem and the story you heard?” Christopher replied, “I liked the cookies.” After a moment, he finally said, “Oh, I liked the baby Jesus in the end, too.”

I decided to take a shower before bed last night. Both my boys were in bed.  Christopher was already asleep. I know this because I had just gone in and taken a picture of him sacked out on the floor with Pooh Bear. Jacob was still awake but barely. He curled up on his side as I was kissing him goodnight; a telltale sign that he is about to fall asleep.  I figured it was safe to get in the shower. WRONG!

This is what ensued after I started running the water. Christopher woke up, saw the lights were still on downstairs so went down to see what was happening. Jim had gone outside to take the trash down to the curb. Apparently, Christopher thought we had all left him. He started wandering around from room to room, crying. This woke up Jacob. Jacob went downstairs to see what was happening. When Jim came in just a couple of minutes later, he said he found Christopher wandering around, Pooh Bear in his arms crying, “Mama! Daddy! Where are you?” Jacob was following him around, trying to hug him and saying, “Christopher, why are you crying? It’s ok!”

By the time I got out of the shower and dressed, I heard Jacob and Christopher both talking. I came downstairs to find all three of my boys sitting at the dining room table, having a bowl of cereal at 10:30pm. It’s funny because, after six years of having my boys, I was just getting to a point in my life where I didn’t worry when I stepped into the shower. For the first time, I turned off my mommy ears for a few minutes and just relaxed. It just goes to show Jim and should never assume there is a time when we aren’t needed! We’ll have to plan our garbage trip to the curb and showers a little better in the future.  It’s hard sometimes that I don’t get many moments of relaxation, but I secretly love that they still need me so much.