Christmas was a complete success!
At least it looked like it was. Maybe we've just trained our kids to appear appropriately grateful when inside they are completely disappointed? No. That can't be true. In fact we saw firsthand that we haven't trained them that well when Hans, after opening more Schleich dinosaurs to go with the ones we gave him last year, asked us repeatedly to please promise to NEVER give him any more of those dinosaurs again.
But other than that, everyone truly seemed just very grateful and happy and pleased. And there were several exclamations of "This is the best Christmas EVER!".
I've written before about our haphazard manner of preparing for Christmas with all of these kids. It mostly involves me ordering some things and buying some things. And Mike and I maybe ordering a few things together. And Mike picking up a few things on Black Friday. And us eventually (like a week or so before Christmas) pulling all of those things out, separating them into piles and trying to decide who might still need a few things. And, even when those last things are quickly purchased, there is still always that slight worry that maybe everything isn't quite fair. Maybe someone isn't getting quite enough. Or someone is getting more than everyone else. Or someone isn't getting anything particularly fun or exciting.
So it is always rewarding to see so many happy smiles on Christmas morning! And this Christmas I felt extra grateful for how easily it all seemed to come together. (Even getting both a birthday package and a Christmas package off to Abe with fun enough ideas to make a missionary -- with limited luggage space -- have a good Christmas.)
Hans's favorite toy by far (besides the dinosaurs -- haha) was this little remote control car. The boys have some that they never allow him to use. And this one was simple enough for him to manage with no trouble.
We usually open presents in a repeating circle of youngest to oldest. We had to switch that order up a bit after awhile because I usually buy Summer and Mette nearly identical things. So Mette would open a gift each time before Summer, and the gift would always a surprise for Metts. And less of a surprise for Summer. We reversed the two of them half way through the present opening and that seemed to work out nicely.
Anders was the most full of joyful exclamations. Everything was a glorious gift to him.
I took Daisy shopping (with toddlers in tow) only a few days before Christmas to make her try on a few things ... and then promptly forget about them. (I'm sure she erased them from her mind just like I told her to!) We found her the most flattering dresses. (Dresses always seem a hit gift for my girls.)
I sent Penny and Goldie a little meme the other day with some teenager saying, "I sure hope my friends never find out I have a jacket!" Yes. Because wouldn't that be embarrassing? The two of them never wear coats to school. Even though Goldie walks and Penny waits at a bus stop -- and even though it's often snowing and freezing. Luckily Penny likes this red coat enough that she's even been wearing it in the house. It isn't the warmest. But then, I guess, the warmest is the one you will actually wear.
I gave these inexpensive little puffy-reusable-sticker books to the girls last year. They dress up little fairies, etc. with sticker dresses and crowns. The stickers get lost in the carpet and stuck on clothes, and eventually the backs get too much lint on them to really work anymore and I discreetly throw them away (which is just the kind of present I like really). But they spent so much time playing with them last year that I gave them some this year as well.
Baby Yoda. As far as I can tell, some version of him has appeared in nearly everyone's Christmas around here this year. Anders was thrilled to be the recipient in our family. He even made him a large bed in his room.
I've taken to using every cereal and other spare box I can find around the house in December to place Christmas gifts in. I tape them shut, write a code name on the box, and then have the older girls wrap them (and transfer the code name to the outside). It's not failproof (Jesse somehow opened two of Goldie's gifts this year), and it makes it appear that a lot of kids are getting things like cereal, crackers and diapers in our Christmas pictures; but! it is a tremendous help in my readying Christmas for so many kids.
These little white nightgowns are very sweet on the girls. (Only slightly less sweet now that one girl, in a fit of anger, drew a black-pen face with a tongue sticking out on her sister's nightgown. Sigh.)
Jesse really loved his element model kit and has been happily making sulfuric acid and glucose and the like.
This little sprite still didn't know much about what was going on and, as usual, preferred to stay very close to me.
Goldie and Penny got some cool lights from Bright Lab Lights to hang in their rooms. (I'd gotten Daisy some for her college dorm so they had seen how fun they looked already.)
A fancy church coat for Daisy.
He didn't look so upset about the dinosaurs ... initially. Shrug.
You can get a better glimpse of the lights in the picture below.
Starling did leave me long enough to get some of Mike's long socks on -- like she insists on doing at least 45 times a day. She also allowed Penny to read her her new Christmas book.
These little bumper car remote control cars were another big hit. Two people drive them and whoever hits the side of the other in the right spot first ejects the driver from the other car and wins.
Jesse has been wanting something like this for all his various circuit boards and switches and wires and so on for some time.
The girls each got two princess dresses. They wore them non stop the first few days after Christmas.
Penny really does love Onward.
Glucose.
I bought two of these books years ago. They have things like gingerbread men you have to decorate or jack-in-the-boxes where you draw what is springing out of them, etc. The kids always argue over someone drawing on a page with little thought. So I got most of them their very own this year.
A perfectly frozen-looking little Elsa. (Also, the kitchen table is where everyone keeps their gifts for several days after Christmas until we find spots for everything.)
Have you heard of needle-felting? It's like the poor-man's crocheting or something. I don't quite understand how it works, but I bought Daisy a kit and within minutes she was turning tiny balls of wool into adorable mushrooms and narwhals and Star Wars droids by ... stabbing the wool repeatedly with a needle?
I loved the label Summer put on the box she was keeping her Christmas presents in.
Driving Anders' remote-control bumper cars.
Little Princesses.
More princesses.
And all the boxes and wrapping paper waiting to go to the garbage afterwards! As my mom has said before, one fun thing about having an enormous family is that, even if everyone only gets a few things, it LOOKS like a roomful of gifts on Christmas morning!
