Today started far too early. I’ve not been sleeping well anyway these last few days – the usual insomnia issues – but I tend to wake anyway at any small noise, and with the kids sleeping in the guest room right next to our bedroom, I was even less able to doze off for very long. So I woke right up when I heard their door open and then a small figure wandered into our room. The oldest nephew just needed to use the bathroom, so back he went into the room, but then it wasn’t long before the youngest nephew was also wandering out, this time wanting to go upstairs to his parents. Since it was about 4am at that point and I didn’t think his parents would appreciate being woken up quite this early, I redirected him back to his room, and of course it wasn’t much longer that all three kids were up and awake.

I had to get up at 5:30 anyway, to bring the dough in from the back porch to warm up, so at that point it didn’t seem worth me trying to go back to sleep. So I told the kids that as long as they were quiet they could stay and play in their room, but they had to stay there until at least 6:30, seeing as how the grandparents were supposed to arrive by at least 7am. Of course, once I’d dealt with the bread and set a kitchen timer, and curled up on the upstairs sofa, it occurred to me that it would be hard for them to determine when 6:30 would arrive, just about the time I saw three little shadows coming up the stairs, looking for a clock.

By this time my older sister’s mom radar has kicked in, so between the two of us we shooed all three kids back downstairs. I plugged my bedside clock in and set it on a shelf in their room so it’d be easy to see (it’s digital, nice big glowing numbers). And then my sister reminded the boys that in their house the rule is that there are no lights on until 6:30 (a much better option than my idea to just let them play for two hours – heh), so everyone had to crawl back into bed and turn the lights off, and now that there was a clock in there, no more excuses to keep poking little heads out “just to check”.

By this time, sleep was pretty much a lost cause for me, although I did try curling back up on the sofa with the kitchen timer – but that didn’t last long because then my younger sister got up and the two of us had to roll out the dough for the rolls and by the time we got all the pans prepped and the dough rolled it was close enough to the time kids were allowed out of bed that they came upstairs to help make breakfast.

We all did stockings, and by the time we were done with those, enough of the rolls were ready that we could get started on breakfast. And after we’d all stuffed ourselves with homemade cinnamon buns and sticky rolls, and some of us had fortified our very tired brains with large quantities of coffee, we all congregated in the living room and opened presents. Lots of squealing from little kids, and oohing and aahing from adults, and cryptic thanks to “Santa” (once we figured out which ‘Santa’ to thank) for presents as they were unwrapped, and I think everyone was quite pleased with what was waiting for them underneath the tree. The youngest nephew immediately dove into the packaging for his giant nerf gun, while the other two kids and several of the adults all sat down around the table for a few games of Clue. While the kids were all occupied, my older sister and my dad and I all piled into the car and went off to scout out where we’d be doing our shopping tomorrow, and by the time we got back my mom had pulled out lots of veggies and dip and people were scarfing them like candy. I pulled out crackers and cheese and then I tried to take a nap, but old houses have noisy floors, and there was lots of laughter and chatter upstairs and it just wasn’t meant to be.

Dinner was the traditional meatloaf, baby peas in butter sauce, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread, and mashed potatoes. Along with this being the first time I’ve ever made the yeast rolls, this is also the first time I’ve ever made mashed potatoes. Apparently I am a far more limited cook than I realized. Heh. I’d intended to try to set the table all fancy, with candles and such, but the timing just never quite worked out, and I’m not sure there would have been room to put them on the table anyhow.

The boys and their dad got a Wii from Santa (aka my older sister) , so after dinner, Richard and the brothers-in-law hooked up the Wii to our television and we all crowded into the living room and each got one turn on the Wii. That was a lot of fun, if only to see my mom trying out bowling on a video game, and my dad take on golf.

We finished the evening with pie and cookies (so very many cookies) and more coffee (decaf this time, though), and the kids have all been put, protesting, to bed. And I am pondering the massive pile of dishes waiting in the kitchen (and really hating not having a working dishwasher) and weighing that against just giving up and going to bed and dealing with them later, and right now, I think that the second option is definitely going to win.

Happy Holidailies!