The 9 Days of Christmas, part 1

Our Christmas week has been a memorable one, so I'm going to chronicle some of our days here for posterity.  Warning: boring, journalish, day-in-the-life type post comin' atcha.

Saturday (before Christmas, the 21st):

At 5 AM I woke up and headed straight down to our home office to complete my final grading for my online class.  I completed what little Christmas shopping we had to do the night before ($1 stocking stuffers for the girls, a play shopping cart for C, ingredients for food items to make).

I scheduled myself to stop working at noon, but I was nowhere near done when noon rolled around.  (The final week of my online class included an insane amount of 4-part-chorale-writing worksheets for my students, along with a final composition project, plus all of their regular sight-singing, ear training, and blogging assignments.  I realized a few hours after I started that this was going to take me a mammoth amount of time to grade.)  M came downstairs to check in and asked me if I would email him the recipes for the almond butter and mocha mix I had planned on making that afternoon for Christmas gifts, and he told me that he and N would get started on the task while the younger two napped.  I gratefully accepted the help.

By the way, I highly recommend having a super helpful, renaissance man of a husband if you plan on raising a family and working part-time.  Just sayin'.

So I worked until about 4:30 and M and N did all of the present-making that I had hoped to do.  N helped with everything that didn't involve the oven, and put all of the food in jars, decorated them, and labeled them herself.

I also highly recommend having an extremely helpful and capable 5-year-old around the house.  Just sayin'.

Sunday (before Christmas, the 22nd):

We got everyone up at 6:00 AM and headed to church.  I sang my last big solo of the season for the two services while M mostly handled shuttling the kids around.  This was our last Sunday singing in Boston (this is one of the commitments we decided to eliminate from our schedule).  It was bittersweet because we'll miss the great music at this church, but we're happy to be looking forward to Sunday mornings that are a bit less marathon-ish.

We got home about 12:30 and I spent the rest of the afternoon working while M supervised naps and put the finishing touches on our Christmas crafts.  M made us a pizza for dinner and the girls had ice cream cones for dessert.

Monday, before Christmas (the 23rd)

I was up by 5 working again.  M took the girls shopping for Christmas dinner groceries with the list I made for him.  When they returned I took a lunch break, helped put the younger girls down for naps, and then it was back to work.  We had leftovers for dinner.

M started to feel queasy after dinner so I stuck around to help put the kids to bed while he laid down.  After they went to bed I spent another couple hours working until I FINALLY finished grading.  Hooray!  No more grading until January 8.

I went to bed around 10; I was vaguely aware that M spent most of the rest of the night in the bathroom sick to his stomach.

Tuesday (Christmas Eve)

M's Christmas gift to the older girls was to buy them tickets to the Christmas Eve matinee performance of Boston Ballet's Nutcracker.  Although he woke up weak and exhausted, he said to me, "I am NOT missing this."  He managed to survive the day on crackers and a few sips of water, and the girls had a great time.

An adorable bed-headed C photo-bombed our first attempt

...but then we finally got a pic of the girls all dressed up and ready to go!

A phone pic that Daddy snapped in the theater

The big girls and Daddy left about 9 AM and were back by 3 ish.  While they were gone, I cleaned the entire house for company and attempted to make a dent in the mountain of laundry that had accumulated in the past few days while I'd been working like a madwoman.  C was wonderfully patient and entertained herself for the most part.  I wrapped all of the girls' presents for the next day while C was napping.

I made us spaghetti for supper while simultaneously preparing and rising the dough for our Christmas morning cinnamon rolls.

After supper, Auntie Bethie stopped by with her presents for the girls-- Goldie Blox for the bigger girls and Lego Duplos for C.  Big hits all around!  They played with their Auntie for a few hours, then we hung the stockings and it was time for bed.

M was exhausted after an active day in which he ate pretty much nothing except water, saltines, and toast.  He crashed as soon as Auntie Bethie left.  I rolled out and prepared the cinnamon rolls, then put them in the fridge to rise overnight.  Then I gave myself the Christmas gift of a luxuriously long shower, enjoying the fact that all projects and preparations were completely done.

Wednesday (Christmas Day)

Everyone slept in until 7 AM!!  The best Christmas gift Mommy and Daddy ever got!!  (Usually our Christmas wake-up call happens at about 5 AM.)

We encouraged the girls to play with their Goldie Blox to hold them off from opening the other gifts until after we had our cinnamon rolls.

(a hastily snapped phone pic before they were devoured)

(I don't have my cinnamon roll recipe up here on the blog, but I really should because they're a family favorite.  M requested them and I made them as a kind of Christmas present to him.  And well, let's face it... they were a Christmas present to me too.  My fave!)

Thankfully, M was able to enjoy his Christmas morning cinnamon roll with limited queasiness.  Hooray!

We opened presents slowly and the girls were very patient taking turns.

After present opening we spent some time playing with new things, and then it was a light lunch and off to naps for the youngest girls.  I began preparing our Christmas dinner (Fancy Flounder Roll-ups from MWL, homemade rolls, baked potatoes, and pretty much every roasted vegetable I was having a craving for-- beets, turnips, brussels sprouts, asparagus, and sweet potatoes).

Christmas festivities continued tomorrow in part 2!  Stay tuned...

(read part two here)