The Children Are Nestled All Snug in Their Beds

I hope those visions of sugarplums are still dancing in their heads.

The house is quiet, only the Christmas lights and candles glowing, pine and cinnamon wafting through the air -- yeah, it's Yankee Candle, so what? I'm trying to trick my brain into falling asleep with some herbal tea. I think I overdid the cookies or something, as I seem to be on some sort of jittery sugar high.

This year I finished my wrapping early: 3:00am. The Christmas Eve wrapfest is the one thing I still miss, as far as the ex. Every year, after the kids went to bed, we'd stay up late wrapping presents and talking, Christmas tunes playing, eggnog heavy on the rum. Even after we split, once I moved back overseas, he still came over every Christmas Eve and we kept the tradition up, which was nice. We'd reminisce about Christmases past and get our eggnog on as we fought with wrapping paper and curling ribbons.

Wrapping by one's self is a real pain, because by the time it's finished, the kids are at the door, executing a flanking movement to invade my bed. They send in the dogs as reinforcements to wake me up at some ungodly hour, oblivious to the fact that my eyes are slits and I've clearly lost a battle with scotch tape and the blasted curling ribbons. Dogs and kids are always perky at an ungodly hour on Christmas morning. Dogs are pretty much perky at any given ungodly hour, as they can go from snoring to leaping and bouncing in about .05 seconds, Christmas or not. And kids, you'd think that by the time they're all between the ages of 15 and almost-20, the early morning wake up call would be a thing of the past. Um, no. Which, truth be told, is a good thing.

Well, speaking of ungodly hours, my tea has had the desired effect, and it's time for Santa's helper to hit the sheets for my allotted slumber.

Wishing you all very happy merriment and happy warm connections with your loved ones today and this season.