We had a lovely Christmas. Santa was especially good to our girls. They both found the American Girl dolls they had wished for beneath the tree. At one point Christmas morning Miss C surveyed the presents and exclaimed, “Santa is off the hook!” I’ve never heard her use that expression in all of her 7 years so I knew this was, as Martha says, a good thing. Miss C has been carrying her Kaya doll everywhere and sleeping with her.

We did have an unfortunate terrible, horrible, no good very bad Christmas day moment when I told Miss A that because of the monsoon type weather Christmas Eve that I sprinkled her special magic reindeer food on the lawn down the trash can after she fell asleep. The girls had set out cookies and milk for Santa but I forgot about the reindeer food.

And behold, this was NOT GOOD. No, this was VERY BAD. Indeed this SUCKED great jingle balls, I mean bells. In fact, for a few minutes I thought, “We can start over, right?” This is how we start Christmas morning?” The look she gave me and the subsequent bawling was tantamount to me telling her that Santa had left a lump of coal in her stocking along with a pack of plain cotton underwear and some brusell sprouts. Next Christmas I will definitely take the child out in rain boots, a rain coat, a wet suit…whatever it takes to brave the elements to feed those damn reindeer.

All was well after I convinced Miss A that Santa’s reindeer knew that she, a very special 4-year-old little girl, had made the reindeer food especially for them and that they understood why she couldn’t come out in the rain to feed them.

Due to a couple of things going kaput at once (the hubby’s Honda Civic and our dishwasher have died in the past month) the hubby and I were too practical flat broke to buy each other frivolous presents such as Snuggies or microwaveable slippers. He did give me a new point and shoot digital camera in a lovely red, though. Yea! I also got an awesome digital photo frame from my mother and a TJ Maxx gift card from my mother-in-law and I can’t wait to go shopping. The hubby and I headed to Lowes the day after Christmas and bought a dishwasher with our Christmas money. I may have to write a separate post about how awesome it is to take a cranky, hungry 4-year-old off to purchase a major appliance at dinner time the day after Christmas.

I’m pretty excited about replacing our old dishwasher. It had had several mini strokes over the past year before it finally said, “Eh…to hell with you people and your loading me daily!” I’ve been washing dishes by hand for a few weeks. The first few days it was Zen and humbling but after three days it was not really amusing it sucked. I’d even convinced Miss C how cool drying dishes by hand was and started giving her a quarter for her hard work. Child slave labor rocks (only, of course, if it’s your own child.)

How was your Christmas?

p.s. I’ve posted a few great post-holiday sale finds I found this weekend online. I love a good sale, especially when I can just sit and shop in my pjs! And don’t forget that the world famous Harlem Globetrotters are coming to Nashville Friday! Check out the great deal on Harlem Globetrotter tickets for families.