On Christmas Eve, I made the traditional pernil (roast pork) along with arroz con gandules (yellow rice with pigeon peas). I'd like to eventually get to the point where I'm making a grand feast, like for Thanksgiving, but I'm not there yet. Anyway, I messed up the timing for the pork and we ended up rushing through dinner in order to make it to church. I was hurrying the kids and they clearly didn't want to eat. It was awful! Under normal circumstances, I would have suggested eating dinner after the service, but Esteban had to work at 8pm (graveyard) so that wasn't an option.
Because of dinner, we were late by 25 minutes to the service. I hate that. The Christmas Eve service is usually so beautiful and I love the music. It's usually an outdoor candlelight service, so I was extremely disappointed when they didn't do the candles this year. And then, as if we weren't the last ones there, we had to be the first ones to leave since Esteban had to go to work. I came home and was so disappointed. This is nothing like what I'm used to when I was growing up in Jersey. I really needed an attitude adjustment at this point cause I was not happy. I went to my room to change and I put on my pretty pajamas. I call them this cause I always feel so dainty when I wear them. And Jayden walked in and said "Mommy, you look beautiful." That's all it took. Attitude adjustment - complete!
I came out to the living room and read to them from the books of Luke and Matthew and followed up the reading with the birth of Christ from the kid's animated children's bible. It might have been a bit heavy for Maya, but Jayden was into most of it and he kept asking where the little drummer boy was. LOL Afterwards, it was time for bed. I had a glass of wine while I waited for them to fall asleep. I didn't have to wait long for Maya. She was knocked out.
Jayden was another story. I had to tuck him in 6 times. Finally I threatened to put up the baby gate.
Afterwards, I went to work on embellishing the presents with bows and ribbons. Plus, I had two last minute arrivals to wrap and one gift to put together. Before you know it, it was close to midnight so I went back to my room and caught the Midnight Mass. I fell asleep at some point until Esteban came home around 5am. So I got up again and we started to load up the tree and put some stuff out in the play room.
When Jayden woke up, the first thing he noticed was the stocking on his door handle. He grabbed it and came running out to the screen room. Didn't even notice the tree. Maya came right after. He was thrilled with his workbench and tools and Maya was taken with the vanity set, but she was more into the stocking.
It took some convincing, but we finally got them to go out to see the tree and the first thing they spoted was the little tykes car.
It took some convincing, but finally Jayden realized that the car was for Maya and the motorcycle was for him.
After gifts, I jumped into the kitchen to make my Christmas Breakfast, which is stuffed french toast with chocolate chips, strawberries and bananas. After breakfast, Esteban went to bed. I don't blame him, after working an all-nighter. I had quite the disaster in the kitchen. After cleaning that up, I had this to look forward to. The scene of the crime...
Jayden pulls up a chair and gets to work with his tools!
While I was cleaning up the kitchen and the living room, almost two hours by the way, Jayden and Maya were entertained outside, but I had quite the disaster waiting for me out there after a couple of hours on their own. After all that, I put them down for nap and went down myself. Now that was exhausting, but a wonderful Christmas morning, if I do say so myself.
