Twas the Night Before Christmas and Things One and Two end up in tears...

Our Christmas weekend was great! We enjoyed making gifts for neighbors, we even learned a little something in this process...I'll blog that story later. We prepared ourselves for the arrival of Santa and was not disappointed when we woke up the next morning. The night before, however, is another story.

There is nothing more exciting to a child than the arrival of the big guy. We spend all year being good so that we make the nice list. This year had my seven year old daughter so excited she could not sleep! You see, Santa puts their stockings on their doorknobs when he's finished up so that when they wake up the next morning (key word MORNING) they know he has been there. This year that tradition caused tears and broken hearts!

My husband and I had finished up preparing the home for Santa, after the children had been tucked in. We were tired and ready for our sleep. We tucked ourselves in bed, ready for those dancing sugar plums, around the eleven o'clock hour. Mind you, Mr. Clause had decided to go on ahead put those stockings out before he really should have, after all the children had been sleeping through the night for some time and he was confident it would be alright. We should also mention that some of the stockings were a little too full to place on the doorknob this year so he simply laid them on the floor next to their bedroom doors.

Alright, back to mom and dad all nestled snug in their bed waiting for dancing sugar plums...Just before the first sugar plum made its grand entrance mom hears shuffling feet from down the hall. Her first thought, "CRAP!" She reaches over to see what time it is, the clock reads 11:45! WHAT??? The shuffling footsteps reach her side of the bed and she hears her seven year old daughter anxiously exclaim, "SANTA CAME! SANTA CAME!" Oh holy crap! She woke up and saw the stocking...DANG! What do we do now? It's too early (or late, however you look at 11:45pm) to wake up everyone and head downstairs. I tell her that it's not time to go down, that it's still night time. Well, way to go mom, she's crying, inconsolably, now! I really am dumbfounded in how to handle this. Every fiber of my being wanted to take her downstairs and let her dig in...no matter how long we had to stay up. The reasonable side of me thought it best to try to convince her to go back to sleep and wait until morning when everyone was up and ready to go down together.

We wiped our tears and crawled into bed with mom and dad, NO way was I sending her back to her own bed, she had been through enough! We laid talking about how early Santa showed up, how we were all so very surprised. I even told her to whisper because I thought I heard something downstairs and we didn't want to startle Santa if he was still setting things up. This finally worked and our angel was soon back asleep between us.

I lay in bed for a while feeling guilty for not taking her down when she saw the stocking, the clear indicator that Old St. Nick had actually arrived. I had decided that next year, we'll just ask Santa to leave the stockings downstairs, it's easier and he's less likely to wake anyone up before it's time (another thing she and I decided had woke her too soon...he can be noisy, he's not exactly slim Jim after all). It took a little while but I did it...asleep again, well after midnight.

It felt like only a few minutes when I hear more footsteps bounding down the hallway. I take a quick glance at my clock...3:39! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! It's thing two this time. I know at this point I cannot contain them or take anymore tear shedding children. I will get up and we will all go down and start our Christmas morning dark and early. Much to my, happy, surprise, he only wanted to know if he could close his bedroom door. He was worried the dog would come in his room. He apparently had missed the stockings lying on the floor next to his door, and for this I was thankful. I told him he could and he ran down the hall, passing the waiting stockings once again, closed his door and that was it!

 It was six in the morning when I hear the footsteps again. This time thing two was upset. WHY? The stockings were there and it is an acceptable time for waking up and beginning our fun. NOPE, he had opened his door and saw his doorknob was empty. With tear filled eyes he asks, "Why didn't Santa come?" I can't take it. Two out of three little ones had been lead to tears this year because of stockings! I tell him to turn the hall light on and check around his door and see if maybe Santa had laid them on the floor. He quickly does it and the excitement of Christmas has been restored! THANK YOU LORD!

Stockings were exciting enough and now it was time to head down the stairs. We found what we asked Santa for. We discovered he had tracked in soot from the fireplace and could see his footprints left behind by his big black boots. He had answered all the questions that had been left behind for him, ate his cookies and drank his hot cocoa. We ripped open all the other gifts and spent the rest of the day playing, happily and quietly, with our new treasures. The Christmas spirit had been restored, our faith had been kept in tact and our lives resumed to normal.