Not A Creature Was Stirring

It was sixty degrees on Christmas Eve.  When the sunshine spilling over the mittens alerted me, I made the children run outside and use wisely the last few hours of daylight.

I cranked the ISO super-high to make Zeke visible, but here he is (in the darkness of a setting sun) barefoot, on December 24th.






Debbie was not present for the annual stocking-stretching ritual.  I blame her absence for the ensuing chaos, but after a half hour of this, I at least had the presence of mind to order them up to bed.





I was pretty pleased with myself for avoiding an all-nighter this year.  Three cheers!  You won't be so impressed when I tell you that I didn't get into bed until after 2:30, but in my defense, I had finished wrapping all presents, both large and small, shortly after breakfast, and had divided, wrapped, and sorted into bags all stocking stuffers the previous night.

HOW THEN DOES IT TAKE HOURS FOR THE KITCHEN TO LOOK LIKE THIS?






In a word-- COOKIES.

I blame the cookies.  There are seven cookie children now, you know, and they take a goodly amount of time to frost.

There's little point in telling you which cookie belongs to which child.  I'm sure the uncanny resemblance to their real-life counterparts already gives it away.  (But just in case you can't see beyond the frosting to the soul within, the order goes from oldest to youngest.)

 It felt good to tie up all the loose ends and, wiped out, finally turn out the lights,






leaving a downstairs all shrouded and still..





and cleaner than it ever is when people other than me are awake.





I placed the Baby in the creches, started the wise men on their journey, and all was at peace,






All at peace, except for this one discordant note at the top of the tree.