So this was Christmas

Everyone else is busy writing their 2009 retrospectives and resolutions for 2010, but I am going to forge ahead with my post about Christmas anyway. Remember Christmas? We had a lovely Christmas. Which is a good thing, because all the days AROUND Christmas have been sort of… awful. There’s been a lot of illness and not a lot of sleeping and the tantrums have been excruciating. EXCRUCIATING. Motherhood is just beating me down right now, is what I’m saying.

But more on that later, because this post is about Christmas! Which was lovely! Our family festivities started on Christmas Eve when we had plans to go to Big Sister #3’s house for an extended family gathering complete with eleven million cousins of the Jack generation. OK, actually only eleven of Jack and Nora’s cousins, but when you add in Jack and Nora, you get a total of thirteen cousins; nine of whom are under eight years old and six of whom are under four. So it sort of FEELS like eleven million.

But as loud as all those little kids can be, I actually love getting together with all the cousins. It’s wonderful to see my parents and all my siblings and their spouses for one thing; for another, with all those cousins to play with Jack could not be less interested in me so I actually get to participate in the adult conversation. Also, if I’m at a party, it means I’m not supposed to be cleaning the bathroom or preparing dinner or doing the budget or the like, so if Nora demands to be held nonstop, I can just hold her! No problem! Sometimes this comes with some guilty feelings because it means Andrew is stuck dealing with any discipline issues that arise with the preschooler, but then I just sip my wine until those feelings pass. And so the party was a success.

Getting to the party, however, was filled with a touch more strife, because we had a certain number of chores to get through before we could go. I wanted the house to be at least RELATIVELY clean for Christmas morning, for example, and since The Great Respiratory Illness of 2009 had me sidelined for most of the month, we had a bit of an uphill battle on that front. Additionally, I wanted to make the coconut layer cake for Christmas morning to continue our new tradition of having Jesus’ birthday cake with Christmas breakfast. Unfortunately, Jack was completely wound up and running around like a nutcase, making these chores particularly difficult to get through. And then, in a bonus little “pbtthh on you!” from fate, I dropped one of the cake layers while trying to tip it out of the pan. I would have taken a picture of the sad little pile of broken cake pieces, but I did not have time to get the camera because I had to stop Jack from LICKING IT UP OFF THE FLOOR LIKE A DOG.

Ah, three. What a fun year!

And now Nora has awoken from her Ergo nap, so I have to shower and get dressed and get everyone else dressed so we can go visit the grandparents because we need to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and SEE PEOPLE. (See above re: beaten down.) So I will be back to tell you about the good parts of Christmas, of which there were many. And then I’ll return to complaining.