Christmas Eve

As a parent, I know that there are only a limited number of Christmas's that the kids will really enjoy before they become disillusioned. Right now Sara pretty much believes anything that we tell her. She thinks that Santa Claus will come down our chimney tonight and leave her lots of presents under the tree. She believes that she has to be asleep when Santa comes, or she won't get anything. These are probably the best years as a parent. Kyle is still a couple of years away from Sara's sense of wonder. Right now he'd rather knock the tree over and try to eat the ornaments.

Speaking of the Christmas tree, it's gone through all kinds of abuse these past few weeks. It's been knocked over countless times. Many, many ornaments have been destroyed. The tree used to filled from head to toe with ornaments, now I'd say only about 50% remain. And you just can't say "No, don't touch that!" to children. It doesn't work. They can't help themselves, they have to touch everything!

We made the decision early on to hide all the presents in the closet out of reach. Had we put them out earlier they'd be ripped open and the paper would be in shreds all over the floor. Tonight, Christy and I will assemble Sara's easel so she can start drawing right away tomorrow morning.

I have to admit that Christmas for me had lost it's excitement over the last several years. It seemed like every year I stayed at my brothers house, each year was worse than the last one. Last year, for example, I had to take Sara to the ER on Christmas day because she was really sick. Then there was my brothers wife who told us that we'd have to start staying in hotels if we want to visit again. That they couldn't make room for us in their two-story, 4 bedroom house. It was getting a bit sad. Now that Christy and I and the kids are celebrating the holidays as a family of our own, I feel a lot more excitement about Christmas. It will be a lot of fun to see them wake up tomorrow morning and see all the gifts under the tree. That kind of stuff is priceless.

(Picture: Sara posing by the tree.)