Christmas

(OK, so I think with this post I will be caught up!)

How was Christmas? I just got back to work from the four day weekend and that is the favorite question. I have to say that it was a very nice Christmas. I had tried very hard not to have any expectations about how Katya would act (since you can't really predict anything with her) so this may have added to the pleasure. Katya was very grateful for all her gifts. She opened them up and said thank you and gave us big hugs after almost all of them. I don't really remember Allie saying thank you. This may be because Katya's reaction was just so much more appreciative so my saying this may not be very fair to Allie.

I don't know about you but when I was a kid, on Christmas Eve I was so excited to open my presents that I couldn't sleep. We would wake up at about 4 am and run into my parent's room and ask if it was time. They would always tell us not yet. This was repeated for the next hour and a half until they eventually decided that they were not really getting any extra sleep anyway and might as well get up. One of us used to sneak past my parent's room to the living room in order to get a glimpse of the "goodies" that Santa had brought and then we would sneak back to report to our brothers and sisters what we had saw. "Jeff, I saw a GI Joe toy that might be yours! Cathy, I saw a doll that might be yours!" Allie and Katya slept until 7:30 am and they did not wake of their own accord. Tony helped wake them up (with our prodding). I know - we should be thanking our lucky stars that we could have slept longer! The problem was that Alex and I were both hungry and we were going to my mom's for breakfast and couldn't do this until the gifts were opened. Even after Tony had sat on Katya's bed and pulled her hair for a bit, she still wanted to "keep sleeping". What's wrong with kids these days?



I said to my mom the other day: "Mom, thank you for all the Christmases you gave us and I am sorry if I ever made you feel that I didn't appreciate what you did for me". This was in response to the whole "Disneyland was boring" from Katya and I also never realized how hard it is to shop for two girls that are similar in age and to wrestle with the questions: "Should we get them both the same things? Will they feel bad if we do? Will they feel bad if we don't?" Alex and I came to the same conclusion that my mom had when we were younger - that you are better off getting them the exact same things because if you don't then you know that one or both of them will end up feeling bad. After all that shopping, when one of my coworkers asked me what we ended up getting them, do you know that I have a hard time recalling....Why is that? It seemed so important when you are shopping? I think I will really document what they got because you know that probably even they can't remember what they got - especially Allie, since she was only with us until 1 pm on Christmas, for 4 hours on Saturday, and then we don't see her again until January 6th! We could take all her presents back and she probably wouldn't even remember!



Allie: Skull Candy headphones, an outfit, nail polish design kit, shrinkie dinks, Bratz doll, stereo

Katya: Skull Candy headphones, an outfit, art books, shrinkie dinks, Bratz doll, stereo



An what did Alex and I get? Alex got an Xbox headset that allows him to play Xbox and nobody can hear him. I got a Wii Fit.



And what were the most popular Christmas gifts? The Super Mario Brothers Wii game, the Mario Cart Wii game, and the Wii Fit.



Overall, I think that Christmas was a success. And, as a bonus, Katya really hasn't complained about her chores or her bed time the last couple of days. Maybe she really was grateful? I am still reserving judgement on that...