Christmas Day Diary

5:30 a.m.

Trot wakes me up by coming down the stairs like a strung out Himalayan elephant and running into my room screaming "Santa came last night" while I do everything in my power not to throw the pillow my head is laying on at him.

5:31a.m. to 6:30 a.m.

I lay on my side and pray for death or the final present to be opened, whichever comes first. (Side note: I stayed up until 1 reading the new Dennis Lehane novel so I sort of did it to myself.)

6:30 a.m. to around 10 a.m.

Ever tried to sleep with 3 kids hopped up on Christmas Day adrenaline and remote control cars?

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Nana bought them the Wii Fit, and after several attempts to figure out why the remotes wouldn't work I realized you had to "sync" it. I was about 2 minutes from throwing it out the front door before figuring this out. Turns out reading the directions actually DOES help. Go figure.

This thing is wild; it tells you your Body Mass Index, how much weight you need to lose or gain, and your "Wii Fit" age. Turns out I'm really 48, which surprised me; due to my lack of any type of physical activity and questionable diet I was figuring on about 67.

1 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.

Late lunch with family at my Mom's house, followed by a couple of hours playing some card game called "Hand and Foot" which I'm pretty sure my brother in law made up on the spot just to screw with me. Throw in Trot doing SEVERAL renditions of Christmas Carols while sounding eerily like the Chinese waiters at the end of "A Christmas Story" and Rakes running around wearing a wrestling title belt and we were one turkey catching on fire away from an episode of COPS.

6:45 to 8:30 p.m.

Trot, Rakes, and Ciera playing the Wii while on 4 hours of sleep while Ang and I tried to read. Somehow Trot slipped through the defense lines and snuck an ice cream sandwich into the toy room, yet when found with chocolate all over his face and the wrapper STILL IN HIS HAND he had the marbles to yell "I Didn't do ANYTHING!" This is what happens to 4 year olds on Christmas Day who slept less than your average tweaker the night before, had sensory overload with free toys all day and hopped up on gum, ice cream, and roughly 2300 M&M's.

8:30 to present time of 9:46 p.m.

Ang and Ciera are curled up watching a movie, Trot and Rakes are sound asleep, and I'm desperately trying to get my heart beat back to normal after Ciera yelled out 30 minutes ago that she had a leak in her ceiling and the snow was coming through the roof.

Turns out her lava lamp went all Rosemary's Baby and was spewing whatever that liquid is in a lava lamp out all over her while she was reading.

I now know how Clark Griswold felt when he realized Cousin Eddie was, in fact, standing on his lawn.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man, and Opening Day can't get here fast enough.