We finished unwrapping gifts in a record 90 minutes this morning. As the kids get older the ask for more expensive things, thus less gifts.
And, the fact that the wrapping paper was cleaned up within 10 minutes of unwrapping proves that our children are getting older. It's nice to not have a huge disaster to deal with. Some years it has been absolutely horrible. I have pictures to post, but I need to wait until I'm somewhere I can transfer them to the computer. Right now I'm trying to stay in public areas and out of my office.
Because we have so many teenagers who like to sleep, we make the little kids (who are getting less little all the time) wait until 8 a.m. to open gifts. Tony and Dominyk, the most difficult to keep calm, didn't get up until 7:30 so we had a break. Some years the have been up at 5:30. The combination of them being annoying and Sadie commenting on their behavior and Salinda commenting to Sadie that she needed to mind her own business would have pushed me over the edge on any other day.
Everyone seemed to be grateful and pleased with most of their gifts and were appropriately grateful (something that hardly ever happens in our house). Even though we missed Mike and John, we did not miss the stress they cause our family system.
Kyle has been especially mature and appropriate this week, a huge change from Christmas' past.
Things are calm. People are happy. The anxiety is over. We are glad.
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