As the christmas tide comes to a close I am reminded of the giddiness and conversations of the kids at 2am on Christmas Day as they restlessly awaited 5am on Christmas !!

Daugher: I hope Santa eats the cookies and milk I left for him

Me: yes I am sure he will, now lets get back to bed

Son: We have to give food for the reindeer

Me: Wait what?

Daugher : Carrots and water

Me: Lets skip that, they poop all over the place and make a mess

Daughter: he will love the cookies I made

ME ( muttering) yes the cookies from every house is going to give him obesity and diabetes and then he is going to have a heart attack

Daughter What daddy?

ME: Nothing, let’s go back to sleep

Son: what if he has a heart attack?

ME: Going to have to give him CPR in the family room

Daughter: but the motion security alarm is on how will he come in?

ME: Yes that’s going to be a problem, but he is made of light so he won’t set it off, come on lets go to sleep its very late

Son but it is raining outside how will the reindeer land without slipping?

ME: didnt you read my book “ Interview with an Elf” ? I told you Santa uses thought to travel not reindeer

Daughter: but how can the reindeer see in the rain?

ME ( yawn) they have special windshield wipers on their eyes, let’s go to sleep I am VERY sleepy

Son We need to have a webcam and watch Santa coming in

ME: no lets not, Santa needs privacy while putting the presents under the tree ( so do we while we set up the scene downstairs)

Daugher: I want to stay up all night and meet him

Son Me too

ME: Wait what ? No no we need to sleep right now

Son come on sister lets get to bed we have to wake up in 3 hours

ME : What ? No. no one gets up before 7am

Daugher : What’s that noise? I think Santa is here I have to go check ( proceeds to climb out of bed)

ME: no get back into bed, thats just the wind moving the floor boards

Daughter: maybe he needs help with the presents

ME:he is a grown man he can do it himself, he has elves ( thinking mommy wrapping them up right now)

Daughter (yawn) I wonder if the elf will be there in the morning

Son no he leaves after Christmas Eve to meet Santa

Daughter can we all goto the Northpole right now with the elf?

ME: What no PLEASE goto sleep we ( ME) will be very tired in the morning, the elf travels alone its faster

Son: ( yawn) I am tired

ME ( thank god)

Daughter: Lets all goto Daddy’s room and sleep on him

Son: Awesome idea….

Both jump out of their beds and climb into my bed..

ME : finally we sleep

Daughter: it is too noisy with the rain and wind, Daddy can you tell it to stop?

ME: ( I will get right on it) Will let Santa deal with that task

I nestled back into bed under the covers with each kid resting on top of me on both sides and their breaths became deeper as they fell asleep

3 hours later at 5am they were up at the crack of dawn and the fun began…. Merry Xmas

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I love you