Merry Merry

Wow, another Christmas come and gone! I can hardly believe it. Once again, for me, it felt like a whirlwind of shopping, organizing, to-do lists, wrapping, and making things. But we had a lot of fun too!

Shopping for the girls was interesting this year, since, as most of you know, they have EVERYTHING—every toy, every clothing item, every age-appropriate personal possession ever made. So Bob and I made a vow that we, at least, weren't going to buy them many gifts. But somehow "not many gifts" turned into the usual pile of presents anyway.

I'm blaming all the Santa shananigans. In her letter to Santa, Elsa asked for a rocket ship, a race car, "a little store," and a stuffed kitty. I was all set to just ignore those requests, since they were either repetitive of things she already owns, or they aren't even real toys that actually exist. But Bob made the point that Santa can't really be 0-for-4. That led to a last-minute scramble to come up with a toy cash register and something resembling a rocket ship. I have to say, I'm getting tired of trying to uphold the Santa ruse. Every year the cover-up gets more elaborate and more difficult to maintain.

At any rate, there was lots of good stuff under the tree, regardless of who brought it and how it got there. : )

Claire's favorite present, by far, was a hand-me-down: We brought back Elsa's House, which has been in storage down in the basement since around the time Claire was born. The house was, appropriately enough, Elsa's present to Claire. We did a little remodeling—it got a new bright-red paper roof, since the old one had faded considerably. And of course, it got a brand new sign, declaring it Elsa and Claire's House. Claire just loves it, as you can see. Although her method of crawling in and out of it is ... a little unorthodox.

From Santa, Claire got this Little People cars-and-ramps thingy. We decided this would qualify as the "race car" Elsa asked for. I guess Santa expects some sharing to happen in 2011.

We bought one thing for Elsa that we didn't even know she wanted: The Just Dance Kids Wii game. Apparently she had seen an ad for it and wanted it. We genuinely did not realize this. We just bought it because it looked like something she would like.

The other big hit of this year was Elsa's Tag reading system. It's a pen that you can use with special Tag books. You press the pen onto a word in the book, and the pen reads the word. You can also play games, make pictures "talk," etc. Elsa loves her Tag—she sits and "reads" her Toy Story Tag book over and over for hours at a time. We also got Claire the Tag Junior, although that definitely hasn't gone over as well as Elsa's bigger-kid version.

Other gifts this year included Toy Story 2 and 3 on DVD (for both the girls), Color Wonder paints for both the girls, a big tub of Legos for Elsa, and some new bouncy balls for Claire. Grandma B. got Claire her own baby doll, which means Claire no longer has to fight over share Carol with Elsa.

And the girls each got another World Wild Fund animal—Elsa got a river otter and since Claire has been obsessed with birds recently, she got a barn owl.

And, oh yeah, I got a present, too! I got this adorable charm necklace with the girls' initials. At one point during the present opening, Bob suggested to Elsa that she find my present for me. Elsa said, "You mean her diamond?" Well, it's not exactly a diamond, but I wouldn't trade this gift for all the diamonds in the world. : )

We wrapped up our Christmas Day with dinner at Opa and Grandma's. It was a much smaller group there than we've had in the past, and the kids had a blast together.

And of course, there was quite the haul of presents there as well! Elsa got three Barbies—one with a horse that really walks, one that came with a dog and four puppies, and a mermaid Barbie with color-changing hair. She also got more Tag books and Hungry Hungry Hippos. Claire got another baby doll, some big stacking blocks (which should be a hit, since she loves her stacking cups so much), a Mr. Potato Head, and more.

Happy holidays everybody! May 2011 bring you all the green-frosted cookies you can eat. : )