Christmas Eve- Doing Better

I took a long bath earlier, and watched most of "A Christmas Story" on the portable TV while I laid in there. I almost fell asleep, but didn't. I was more refreshed for the almost nap, though. Afterwards, I was still upset, despite everything.

Since then, though, I've gotten into a better mood. I can still feel it lingering, but hopefully it'll be gone tomorrow. I decided to just go ahead and bake the sugar cookies, despite not really being in the mood. I didn't roll it out and make cut outs, though. I had a package of 24 pre-cut round cookies. Instead of leaving them that size, though, I cut them down a bit, and was able to make 36 cookies instead of 24.

I rolled the cookies in plain white sugar, though, so they would be a bit sweeter. While I was doing that, I got a phone call from my dad. When I answered, he asked to speak to Gillian immediatly, so I handed the phone to her without telling her who it was.

I'm not sure what stopped me from saying who it was, because normally, I do. Anyway, my dad was calling as Santa- something he's never done before, or told me about it ahead of time, so it's a good thing I didn't tell her who it was. She had a long conversation with him, which had him laughing on the other end.

She invited "Santa" to her birthday this weekend, and asked for every toy she's ever seen that looked even remotely interesting. I was laughing at parts of the conversation myself, which really helped my mood tremendously.

When the cookies were out of the oven, we let the kids open their Christmas Eve gifts. Each year, we buy the kids new PJ's for Christmas Eve to wear to bed. Last year and this year, we also let the kids open their gifts to one another, so they each had 3 gifts to open.

Gillian got both Chris & Raegan a new book. Raegan got Vampyre Academy, and Chris got Vampirates, which is a book about Vampire pirates, I'm guessing.

Chris got Raegan the book The Secret Circle, and Gillian a stuffed My Littlest Petshop VIPet- it's like a webkinz, you can go online with a code that comes with it.

Raegan got Gillian a Littlest Pet Shop set, and Chris 5 Matchbox cars.

After they opened gifts, I went into the bedroom- I kept hearing fire engines. I finally figured it out. The fire department accepts donations for Christmas gifts for needy families. I didn't know anything about it until this week. Well, tonight, they are driving around town with 2 Santa Claus's on the back end, delivering the toys to needy families!

From the bedroom window, I got to see them drive past, then stop at a nearby house, and I saw one of the Santa's go up to the house with a big sack of gifts. I'm still hearing them all over town. I think that's fantastic. Maybe next year, I'll remember it or see something about it much earlier in the season, so I can drop something off, and volunteer time. They have volunteers help sort and wrap gifts before Christmas Eve.

After all of us were in our new PJ's (I got a lavender fleece nightgown, Nick got a pair of Stewie fleece PJ bottoms), I had Nick help me bring the table from up stairs down so they could sit in here and watch their Christmas shows while decorating cookies.

Normally we do the cookies in the afternoon, so that when presents are done, we settle down to watch the movies, but since we didn't do that earlier, I wanted to do it all at once to keep the kids from being up too late.

Once Frosty Returns is over with, we'll get the cookies out for Santa Claus, and the kids will head up to bed.