Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We had a relaxing holiday, thanks to the Navy putting Jose on duty this week--which means we had to stay within 30 minutes of the base and couldn't visit anyone. But of course, it was still nice.

Jose couldn't contain himself and wanted Santa to bring the girls their presents on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day. He grew quite persistent about it, so to calm him down, I spent much of the afternoon yesterday figuring out the logistics of giving Maggie and Marin their presents without exposing the whole Santa ruse before Maggie even turns three and therefore depriving her of a key childhood experience. (Marin, at one, is happily oblivious--all she knew was that some new toys and a lot of shiny, edible paper suddenly showed up under the tree.)

As luck would have it, Maggie decided to take a rare nap, during which we sneaked all the presents under the tree. When she woke up, we told her Santa had come, to which she replied, "I missed the reindeer?"

She's not quite three, so I'm still amazed at all the stuff she "gets," including this whole Santa deal. (The true meaning of Christmas is still a bit beyond her, though she did wave hello and/or yell "happy birthday" to the baby Jesus every time we passed a Nativity scene in the car.)

Fortunately, she was still young enough not to make the connection between the wrapping paper that had sat on the dining room table for the last week and the presents under the tree, wrapped in the same type of paper.

Anyway, the tragedy of missing the reindeer's visit was swiftly forgotten when she saw all the presents waiting for her, and she opened her own and Marin's, too. They got a bunch of books, including That's Not My Monster and Your Personal Penguin, a Cariboo game, a baby Ariel/Little Mermaid doll, a Disney princess tea set, some wooden vegetables with a chef hat, a mini dragon kite, some frilly princess nightgowns, and a Fisher-Price indestructible MP3 player from Santa. The grandparents and uncles got them, among other things, a TMX Elmo, a matching game, some American Girl ornaments, a Harajuku Lovers shirt and Gwen Stefani CD (because despite her mother holding the opposite view, Maggie is a HUGE Gwen fan), and some snowmen nesting dolls. Oh, and this penguin-snowman-tree montage that sings "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" when you press a button.

Jose got me a really soft bathrobe--or, rather, a picture of said robe, as it didn't arrive in time for Christmas. He also got me some perfectly hideous Hello Kitty pajamas, because a) I love pajamas, and b) he thought Maggie would get a kick out of them. I adore them and am currently sitting here happily wallowing in their hideousness. And he rounded that out with some workout gear and a protective cover for the iPod video he got me for my birthday (because, I suspect, he wanted my old iPod for his very own--it keeps suspiciously disappearing, along with the iRide thing that allows me to play it through the car radio).

He is notoriously hard to buy for, and if he can't eat it or wear it, he's always compelled to return it, because he can't stand the thought of someone actually spending money on him. But I did all right--I got him some clothes, an electronic photo frame that will store and display 10,000 photos, the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 video, and a few other small things that I think he'll keep this year.

I made a terrible turkey dinner, and since it was raining out, we watched Miracle on 34th St. and, after playing some games, Spiderman 2 today in between eating. Oh, my brother also got me some Serendipity frozen hot chocolate mix, which I've always wanted to try, so we made frozen hot chocolate. I highly recommend it--it's so choice.

We were going to go out and either look at Christmas lights or hit the drive-in, but we all have a cold, so we decided to be lazy. And with all these toys, who needs to go anywhere?

Anyway, it appears I've been invited to tea, so off I go. Ta-ta.