Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Just 3 more sleeps until my little sugarplums will scamper down the stairs to delight in the cache of goodies left by Santa Claus himself!  That being said, there's only 3 more sleeps for mom and dad to pull off the most memorable day of the whole year.  December is a magical time for children, and a maniacal time for moms.

For the last few years I have been able to buy gifts and stocking stuffers right in front of my children as they were too young to know/remember by Christmas Day what came from mom and what came from Santa.  This year was different.  Sure I was able to distract Laney a handful of times at various stores, gently slipping the prizes under my other purchases only to stealthily wing them at the checker and demand that they bag them without my children seeing...or else!  I have even been on a tipsy shopping spree at 10pm to Target with a friend, deliriously drunk from red wine and the power that is shopping sans children.  My saving grace has truly been 2 things:  Laney's preschool mornings and Amazon.com Prime Shipping.

As hard as Christmas has been for me, I can only look at my mother and her friends in awe when I realize that there was no internet shopping when I was little.  Sure, there were catalogs, but mostly there was honest-to-goodness shopping.  I imagine her pulling up to Toys R Us, skidding to a stop in the parking lot, whipping out a flask for some liquid courage, and then putting her game face on as she marched toward the plastic wonderland.  I can picture her scouring the aisles for just the right gifts as she rammed other moms and their carts aside in an effort to snap up the lastest must-have item that we were dreaming of.  Not nearly as magical as clicking and shipping while having a cocktail at my desk!  I feel like writing a thank you note to whomever invented amazon.com and blessing them for eliminating the gridiron shuffle down the aisles of my local toy store.

Last week I even entered Christmas nirvana as the Fedex, UPS, and USPS men showed up at my door day after day dutifully delivering my shopping to me.  There were 3 days in a row where I received 5+ boxes, and the UPS guys actually started bringing them inside for me, stacking them neatly in the hallway that had become my own private shopping paradise.  I informed my UPS driver during his first day of holiday deliveries that I was a heavy internet shopper and he smirked at me, as if to say I was an amateur.  That was Monday.  By Wednesday he was asking what sites I used and bemoaning his own situation of having to actually go to the mall and shop!  Moron!  I even downloaded the amazon app for my phone so I could shop on a whim, because my best gift giving ideas often come to me when I am in very inconvenient places (ie traffic or the playground).  I even purchased a book while inside Barnes and Noble because they only had it in paperback at the store (Bonus:  it was $6 cheaper from amazon)

I spent Tuesday night participating in my own personal Christmas tradition:  wrapping gifts while drinking my favorite wine (Coppola Claret) and watching a cheesy made-for-tv Christmas movie.  The key component of this tradition is that there are no kids and no husbands around!  This year's movie was "The 12 Dates of Christmas" and it didn't disappoint.  I even got all of the stocking stuffers wrapped in tissue paper and sorted for an easy Christmas Eve.  That's right, my wrapping was all done on December 20th, a new record for me.

Is there anything better for getting through the holidays than alcohol?  I think not.  Tomorrow I am going to try making some of  "Rudolph's Tipsy Spritzers"  (OJ, Sprite, vodka, Maraschino Cherry juice, lemon juice, garnished with a cherry a la Rudolph!)

Assembly night.

This brings me to the big ticket items:  the Santa gifts for L and L.  I picked up the 12 Volt Disney FJ Cruiser in purple and pink for Laney on Tuesday.  I had to fold down the 3rd row of seats in the Suburban to get the box in, and it just barely fit.  We put it in the garage for storage and I began parking in the driveway.  On Wednesday, Patrick picked up some pine 2x4s and started building a train table for the kids.  I helped him out with it on Wednesday night and we even had time to rub varnishing wax onto it.  It turned out looking pretty good, and all we had left was to prime and paint the plywood top for it.  I was shocked that things were going so smoothly and we were set to assemble the FJ ride-on toy tonight, making us totally prepared for Christmas.  Of course, we hit a snag.

Patrick and Laney decided to wash Toby while I was out running errands (of course, what else does a mom do in December) this morning.  She bolted into the garage to help gather the supplies before Patrick could stop her, and promptly demanded to know "what was all that stuff in the garage?"  Patrick gets major kudos for the brilliance that follows, as I would have stood there dumbfounded with no explanation for the scene.  He told Laney that Santa had to send some of the stuff ahead with Heart Happybags because it was too big to fit in his sleigh, and that we had hid it for Santa.  Now we might have to admit that we built the train table and have Santa give them the Kindle Fire we bought for them.  I don't think she will recognize the ride on toy because it was just a big box when she saw it.  After all of this cloak-and-dagger planning, it only took 10 seconds to undo our greatest plans.  Fan-tas-tic.  So glad I have been running around doing all this work only to undo it 3 days before the unveiling.

Table all constructed, with the top painted and drying in the background.  There was no hiding this once she walked into the garage.  Poor Patrick has blisters and cuts all over his hands from making this.  

Can you believe we blew it on the first Christmas that we had a true believer in the house?  Maybe next year we will have to do some off-site assembly and some fancy post-bedtime Christmas Eve schlepping of stuff from the grandparent's house to ours.  Oh well, nothing can eclipse the magic of Christmas morning and all will be forgotten as she thunders down the stairs to gather up her North Pole loot.  Until then, the eminent threat of the dreaded lump of coal seems to be keeping all sibling rivalry in check, but just barely.

Note the giant cardboard box!  A recycling nightmare for sure.

God I can't wait for Christmas, mostly because I just can't wait for it to be over.  Don't get me wrong, I am really looking forward to spending time with family, giving gifts to my loved ones, and making memories with my kids.  It's just that making Christmas seem magic is a lot of difficult behind-the-scenes work that goes unappreciated by the kids.  I don't think you can actually understand the torture your mom went through all those years ago until you are in the thick of it with your own little ones.  Guess I should call my mom now and thank her again for those Cabbage Patch kids we got when I was in the single digits.

ps--where in the hell am I supposed to put all of this cardboard?  Our recycling bin is full to the brim and we just emptied it this morning!  The one down side of all that free shipping...