Ying-er 2006: Christmas pics

Now that the excitement of the season has died down, I finally have some time to post these photos.

Christmas Eve with Nana and Papa

The food and notes for Santa are ready.

And then the excitement of the next morning... The best part was listening to AJ explain the process to Charlotte. "Char, so, Santa left presents and a stocking for you. You can open the big ones first, or you can go through ALL the stuff in your stocking. Why don't you do your stocking. Here, I'll do it for you..."

Gotta love the 'take charge' big sister.

Char was quite overwhelmed!

Every year we remind ourselves not to 'over buy', and every year we forget and are reminded why. It is not as if our kids are bugging us for tons of stuff. AJ's Santa requests are often quite embarassing. When she was 3, she asked Santa for "a guitar and a lightbulb" I'm not kidding. We bought her a bedside table lamp, but she kept knocking it over, so we didn't have a bulb in it. Guess she figured that she should avoid asking us and just go straight to the big guy. She got her lightbulb, of course.

What happens the next year? She climbs into Santa's lamp and thanks him for the lightbulb, but explains that it was too bright. Could she please have another on this year, but not so bright? Santa looks over at me, like I am the strangest parent ever, and confirms, "A lightbulb, but not so bright." Clearly he is thinking parent/child...not so bright! And he is calling child protection services because any child that has to ask for a lightbulb for Christmas must surely be deprived. (She got her 25W lightbulb, BTW.)

So this year we're trying to get the list out of her, and again she sticks with the practical. "I would like warm pjs." Right, because we leave you freezing in the dark.... "ANYTHING else?" I plead, thinking that I'm going to have to go to different malls so I can't be tracked. Finally she coughs up "webkin." Thank God. A gift that Santa will think is normal.

Now that I've made a short story long, I'll return to my first point - they seem to have simple needs, our children, and we should stick with that! Naturally, we got caught up in the frenzy and bought all sorts of crap.

Charlotte's favourite gifts - bar none - her toothbrush and her 'Crayola' floss sticks. I'm not kidding. She ignored Polly Pocket, MLP and all the rest of the gang and flossed her teeth ALL DAY.