Christmas Advice

Through experience, we've arrived at the following conclusions.

1. You may not be selfish. I am. I like the kiddies to know where the "big stuff" comes from and to be appropriately grateful. Thus Santa brings cool stuff that delights them, but we (the parents) give the BIG stuff. Bicycles, XBoxes, etc. come from the parents who spent days tracking them down, stood in line for hours, and stayed up all night to assemble (with bloody knuckles to prove it). The kids have never felt short-changed from Santa, and I appreciate the hugs. (I told you I'm selfish.)

2. Our kids always open one present on Christmas Eve. This kind of annoys them because they know what it is in advance from bitter experience, but they go along with it: New pajamas. (We're taking lots of pictures the next morning. I want everybody to look cute.)

3. If you've ever had your kids waking up throughout the night to see if Santa has come yet, or wake up WAY TOO EARLY (2:00 a.m., anyone?) and be ready to tear into the gifts -- you need to understand The Rules of Santa. On Christmas Eve when you go to bed, you must unplug the Christmas tree lights. When Santa comes, he will turn them back on. If you wake up and tiptoe into the living room and it's still dark? Run like hell for bed because Santa hasn't been there yet, and if he comes and sees you out of bed, he may not stop!!! At our house we've been delighted to discover that not only does Santa come and leave the Christmas tree lights, on -- he also turns on the CD player. LOUD. Usually Christmas music, but he has been known to slip the much-desired CD off somebody's Christmas list into the player to wake us all up. Which was lots of fun when oldest son slipped Jimi Hendrix into the player to wake up his dad.

4. Christmas stockings. The day comes when all kids understand that Santa is, um, not filling those stockings any more. I got this idea from my sister. The family draws names, and each person has to fill somebody else's stocking. There's a price limit, and everybody has fun and everybody gets surprised, and it's not all up to one person to try and figure it all out.

5. Mimosas. Christmas mimosas start the day with a fizz-bang.

Optional but fun: Find a preschool Christmas pageant and watch the chaos ensue, complete with handheld fuzzy photos:



(This has been a Christmas-centric entry because Christmas is our holiday-of-choice. Adapt as needed.)

And whatever you celebrate, have a merry-happy!