... at least they didn't wait until we'd gone to sleep to wake us up all over again.

Still, do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be bent over, digging in a drawer to look for those gift bags from last Christmas because nobody can remember where the stockings are, and feel a hard, knobby, bony finger poke you in the side while a voice that sounds like a chain smoking six year old says, "Santa's running late, we got hung up in Poughkeepsie, and then there was a block party going on in Tulsa with search lights... Santa's way behind schedule, and you've got balls to blow up, here's the pump!"

I thought my heart was going to jump out of my mouth!!

I think the only reason that elf isn't dead, dead, dead is because (1) no gifts for the kids EVER, and (2) the Husbandly One wouldn't let me clock him with the lamp. He really likes that lamp. THO, that is.

So... yeah, it's 2:21 a.m., and we're done putting out the presents under the little artificial tree THO and I had the first year we were married. Yes, we still have it, and it looks so cute and completely dwarfed by presents! And I'm sure in the morning, I'll feel more charitable toward the elves, but right now? Not so much.

It was easier when the kids were smaller. Santa did the bulk of the present lay-out, and we just filled out the corners with the presents we'd gotten them. But since the kids have gotten older, it seems Santa is more and more pressed for time.

I'm beginning to wonder, though.

Anyhow, Happy Holidays to all my friends! Hopefully, you're getting more sleep than I am!!

I'm trying not to be bummed. The Husbandly One was only supposed to go in for half a day of work today, but after he got there, he discovered he had to work a full day after all.

*sob*

OH well.

Let's see... Christmas... didn't post about that, did I? Well, Christmas Eve, my best friend and her family came over for dinner, and we had a great time reconnecting, and I was able to reassure myself that her oldest son was indeed whole, hearty, and did not suffer unduly during his time in Iraq... yes, yes, I know, but I was there when he was born, so he's like one of my kids, and it's not entirely logical, it's a mom-anxiety thing.

Anyhow, we had a good time, talking, laughing, eating, and reconnecting, and after they were gone, the Husbandly One talked me into letting the kids open one present.

Normally, we don't do this. And I have to admit, we have been unduly nice to the kids where presents are concerned, because we don't torture them by wrapping them up ahead of time and setting them under the tree where they are visible, and mysterious, and totally unknown for two weeks!! No, we've always kept them hidden until Christmas morning.

Of course, mostly, this was because we had a Labrador Retriever who couldn't stand seeing wrapped presents for his kids under the tree, and he would most thoughtfully unwrap them, and then start barking happily until the kids came running (and toddling) to see why...

Don't even get me started on what the Triplicats did.

So... no wrapped presents under the tree. My parents, of course, were the type who would wrap presents even before we had the tree, and start setting them out where the tree would eventually be.... just to torture us!! Then there's the Husbandly One, who wrapped my engagement ring in a small box and made it into an ornament on my parent's tree, just to torture me for two weeks, until he proposed to me in front of my entire family on Christmas Eve.

So, anyway, we put our presents under the tree Christmas Eve morning, and you'd think we had done it just to torture the Impossible Son specifically!! Heh. Anyhow, I had stood firm against opening before Christmas, but then THO said, "Look, the gifts I got you and the Impertinent One are the kind that... you should open tonight, and that's all I will say about that."

So...we each opened one present on Christmas Eve. And the Impertinent One and I both got... iPod Touches.

*SQUEE!!*

Okay, so the reason he wanted us to open them early was so we could get them set up for the trip into Houston on Christmas. Logical.

Now, the thing I have to say here is that setting up the Impertinent One's iPod was far too easy, and that should have told me something. It took 34 minutes to download the update for the thing, which should have also set my alarm bells ringing, but it only took five minutes to download music and a couple of videos into it, and she was done, off to her room to explore it and squee over it.

It took less than a minute to download the update for mine. But... it took fifteen hours for me to set my iPod up.

No, I'm serious. Techno-geek that I am, the thing frustrated the crap out of me, and I had THO hovering around behind me, determined that it was busted, broken, didn't work, etc. and I just needed to give up on the damn thing and let him return it.

I knew that whatever the problem was, it was ME, not the iPod, and I just needed to keep playing with it to figure it out. And when I did, it was one of those, "D'oh!" kind of things, where you can't believe you were so stupid, but then again, why was loading this thing so much more complicated than loading a Shuffle??

Anyhow, finally got the thing working, and I was a very happy camper.

And no, we didn't go to Houston. Mainly because Mr. Impossible woke up with a very nasty, very juicy cough, and knowing that he usually has a nasty, very juicy cough when we're leaving Houston, we decided not to push things toward, oh, I dunno... pneumonia, perhaps?

So, we stayed home.

And, let's see, on Tuesday night, the Impertinent One was working on a drawing at the kitchen table while listening to her new iPod, gets up to go get an eraser from her room, comes right back, and her iPod is off. Fine, she thinks it's in sleep mode, so she presses the menu button and... nothing. She presses the power button, and... nothing. It still had half a charge left, so she brought it to me, I plugged it into the computer and... nothing. She plugged it into her charger, and ... nothing. It was deader than a doornail.

Turns out some of the functions it had hadn't been working so well, either. Oooookay, well, THO had it insured through Best Buy, so we took it in yesterday to have it looked at... and ended up exchanging it for a new one because... it was deader than a doornail.

So, when we get home, she goes to the Mac to set it up, the update takes less than a minute, and I leave her to set it up, only to have to come back running when I hear her wail, "NO, WAIT, WHY ARE YOU DOWNLOADING MUSIC??? I HAVEN'T MADE A PLAYLIST YET!!!"

Wow, did that sound familiar!

Since I had already figured this out, it only took a couple of tries to get things working properly, and now she has a fully functional iPod that everything works on just fine. Heh.

Let's see... what else... oh, yeah, we went and saw "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" at our local theater, using the movie passes we'd won last month. And it was better than I expected. What really made it fun, though, was how excited the Impossible Son was, because he'd just finished reading the book recently. I was glad they'd stuck a little closer to the book this time, if only for his sake, because he didn't get scared or upset when things got scary (YES, my son, knowledge IS power!!), and when it did deviate from the book, he looked at me and said, "I totally get it now, Mom."

"Totally get what?" I asked, distracted.

"Why you get so upset when a movie isn't like the book. Why sometimes, the book is so much better." He nodded. "I get it now."

I nodded. "Yep. So, what do you do now?"

"Let go of the book," he said with a grin.

That's my boy!!

I'm sure there's vastly more stuff, but really, how much of the minutia of my life do you want here?

I'm going to pull out my DVD of The Quiet Man, make some popcorn, and settle in to warp my kids some more. Heh.