Christmas Eve

With characteristic good judgement and wise timing, I put nearly 50 things up for auction the week before Christmas, which entailed spending untold hours in the days before Christmas taping up rectangular packages to send to the post office rather than to put under the tree.  (In my defense, I made enough money to take advantage of a remarkable sale on radio dramas from Lamplighter Theater without a shred of guilt, which was the impetus for Ebaying.)


On Christmas Eve afternoon, all the packages except a few were gone from the house, and we could ignore Ebay in favor of more enjoyable pursuits.

Like driving laundry baskets.

 And inept caroling.

And instituting a new Christmas Eve tradition-- watching Scrooge while drinking mulled cider.  The children's first viewing was a big hit, Molly!

Like a underdressed elf, Aidan helped me bake a bunch of cookies as they watched the movie.

To cap off the night, the children stretched stockings to impossible limits.  (Annika's sports some impressive holes by this point.)

Frustrated elf.

 I tucked the real children into bed by ten o'clock and the cookie children into bed a little after eleven,

 

and then I tucked up loose ends all night until the house was a magical, unusually orderly paradise, just the thing to delight the socks off of children in the morning.   Mothering-- a gift.

A tower of sugar cereal to eat just before church-- brilliant!