Christmas began for us on Thursday night. As mentioned, Santa came one night early at our house due to our hectic travel plans.
After a week of no sleep with no sitter (yes, I will continue that story down the road), Punky's dad had to make it through one last night on third shift...which left me to play Santa without him for the second year in a row. His boys came and spent the night so I had help. I hope next year he'll be home so we can do it together.
Punky's nap went way too late, and way too long, that day because her dad needed to sleep. So, as you can imagine, add in the excitement of Santa coming and it was damn near impossible to get her to sleep that night. She was still going strong at midnight. Santa was finally able to come around one, and then I was way too excited to get to sleep. I was still up at three.
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| Cookies for Santa |
Before bed, Punky carefully chose the cookies she would leave for Santa...and she licked each and every one to make sure they were absolutely perfect. We poured just enough milk to wet his whistle, and she also left him a juice box in case he got thirsty later.
When her dad got home in the morning, everyone was still sleeping. I heard him come in and knew we had to get up and moving. There was no time to delay if we were going to make it everywhere we needed to be on time. Once the others were awake and ready, it was time to bounce Punky...and I had a hard time getting her to stir.
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| New Rocking Horse |
Between the horse and the xylophone, she was a happy camper. It took forever to get her presents open because she kept stopping to play with those two. But each time she stopped to open one, I got to see that twinkle of excitement in her eyes and the utter joy on her face when she discovered its contents. I can see how kids get spoiled; there is no greater feeling for a parent than seeing your child so happy and full of wonder.
By the time we were finally all finished with presents, it was time to clean up the mess and start packing the truck for the trip. We made it to his mom's around one and left around four to make the long drive home to my parents' house. We weren't even on the road five miles when both Punky and her dad passed out from sheer exhaustion. I fought to keep my eyes open and on the road with nothing to drown out their snoring but Christmas music on every radio station I could get.
We arrived at my parents' just in time for Christmas Eve dinner. My mom just finished putting all the food on the table when my nephew announced, "Mom, I have to puke!"...and then proceeded to throw up in the living room, through the dining room, up the hall, and into the bathroom. Dinner was obviously delayed...
Half way through dinner, he had another episode and the writing was on the wall. It looked like he had the same stomach bug that Punky had Sunday night. My sister was in for a rough night and it was such a shame for it to happen on Christmas. Poor kid.
We left around eight and went to my house in town to settle in for the night. A half hour later, Punky's dad was in the bathroom enjoying Christmas Eve dinner for the second time. Yep, just our luck. The stomach bug got him, too, and he spent most of the night puking his guts out...
I called my parents and my sister to give them the news. It looked like we were in for one hell of a Christmas day. We were supposed to meet at my sister's in the morning to exchange gifts and decided it would be BYOB...bring your own bucket. We didn't know how many more of us would be puking by morning.
Morning came and I'm happy to say that the episode passed for both my nephew and Punky's dad...and no one else fell victim to it...yet. Punky was spoiled once again by her godfather, aunt, and grandparents, and she thoroughly enjoyed ripping open every single package.
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