Fleecy Bliss

Did you have a great Christmas? Did you get all the toys you wanted? The housecleaning robot, the face de-wrinkler, the personal chef who looks like George Clooney? I didn't either, but I had a GREAT Christmas anyway. And today, today is even better than yesterday, because I'm going to stay in my pajamas ALL DAY LONG. Merry Christmas to ME!

Our day started at 6:54 a.m., when Joe-Henry called "MOM!", and when I went in to his room he announced he had to go to the bathroom, but it was still so dark outside (this being the Pacific Northwest, the crack of dawn is somewhere around 10:00 a.m.), he thought it was still night. So he said "Do you think we could go see what Santa brought and then come back to bed, and open the rest of our presents later?" But I was too excited, and told him the truth. That 6:54 a.m. is a perfectly legitimate time for a six year old to wake up for Christmas morning, because inside of me, there is a six year old ready to rip into some packages her own self. I was also incredibly excited to see the look on his face, to see the shiny wonder in his eyes when he saw what Santa brought him.

He got his remote control indoor helicopter from the Big Man. It was the one thing he asked for when he visited him, and Santa came through, in spite of some misgivings, which it turns out, are over all the wrong things. This particular helicopter sounds like a high powered dentist drill, and it's on a tether so everytime it goes up in the air, it threatens to decapitate someone. The cats love it, and Lulu in particular has shit on the carpet downstairs a few more times than her usual 2 times, overjoyed as she is by the calming sound and the rotors threatening to eat her tail. He also got a cool big boy bike, which he seems completely underwhelmed by. I got it out of him later that he was nervous about it because it was bigger and didn't have training wheels. But he doesn't have to worry - it's going to rain here for the next few months, so we won't be venturing outside until about April anyway. He got myriad other gifts, the requisite books, pajamas and clothes, all of which I thought would completely underwhelm him - "another book? yay." He's been so squirrelly in the lead up to the big day, with the tantrums and the testing of my infinite patience (note the thick layer of sarcasm there), I really thought our Christmas morning would be a dervish of flying paper, followed by him writhing on the floor, alternating emotions like the tasmanian devil going through withdrawals. But he amazed me. He was so gracious and polite and really did take the time to appreciate his presents. He was grateful and excited and happy, and fully aware that these were gifts and not his birthright. I was really proud of him. He said "thank you" and until he got kind of worn out by all the presents, he did seem genuinely moved by everyone's generosity. His favorite toys were the Lionel Train Set, complete with conductors hat from Grandma and Grandpa (Santa has nothing on them - they ARE the best gift givers on the planet), and his Lego Airplane from Aunt Jill (who is tied with her parents for first place in the gift giving), which he and daddy built over the course of a couple hours yesterday. It's an amazing piece of engineering, and he loves flying it to the train station and then the dining room table. Our house is a happy hub of transportation.

We called Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jill in California and sent our thanks and holiday greetings and missed them all like crazy. In the late afternoon, my sister and her family and my brother and his darlin' came over and we opened still more presents, then dug into some gumbo-like soup, sandwiches and a pot of chicken soup for my brother, who came down with the nasty, achy flu on Christmas day. Come to think of it, almost everyone was coughing, and the sore throat that I've been nursing for the last several days is dormant now, but I have no doubt it will all probably knock us out just about the time Joe-Henry needs to head back to school, my in-laws come to town, and my sweet hubband heads to San Francisco for a tradeshow. But I'm hoping not. We have a full box of Emergen-C, Costco size crates of oranges and clementines, and enough leftovers that I won't need to cook for a couple weeks, so we are doing our best to head it off.

To ward it off completely, I'm wearing the footy/trap door pjs my husband got me for Christmas. I laughed when I took them out of the box, and couldn't imagine myself putting them on, but I did try them on yesterday morning, just to see if they fit. Not only did they fit, they also made me veeerrrry sleeeeeepy. Plus, my husband thinks they're kind of sexy (the trap door, I guess. Either that or a Cindy Lou Who fetish.) I'd post a picture of me in them, but we managed not to take one (thank you so much honey), but you can get the gist if you just scroll down to the next post and add 41 years and 100 pounds and color. Anyway, I knew I couldn't keep them on, since family was coming over and food needed to be made, and the kitchen tidied, but they called out to me with their robin's egg blue fleece siren song, and family wasn't even in their car yet and I was in them, strutting through the house like a Victoria's Secret model, until I collapsed on the couch, where I spent the next couple hours grinning like a maniac, looking through our wonderful, thoughtful booty under the tree, feelin' the love, and hoping that the love we sent out was spreading smiles as well. Today will be spent cuddling in bed with a book, or curled up on the couch with season one of The Office and eating Chicken Soup, while Charley and Joe-Henry head out to a hobby store for more train track and new guitar strings. I may try to stretch this out all week, since I got THREE new pairs of pajamas. I needed them too. All my flannel pj's were at least 10 years old, the exception being the beautiful pair my sister got me three years ago that I spilled something on and now smell of something mysterious, but not good mysterious. All the pj's I got are impossibly soft and warm and make me feel like someone is taking really good care of me.

I am blessed beyond measure. And sleepy like you dream about.