Christmas Eve Delivery?

Yesterday, it hit me that I will have 7 people for Christmas Eve dinner and not 6. I think I forgot to count myself.

This was quite a shock. I had washed 6 napkins.

So, now what? The dining table is too small. It has no leaves. We bought it right before we got married and it's been holding court in the dining room since we moved here for lack of any other place to put it or anything to put in its place.

This is not due to a lack of effort. Not a lot of effort, mind you, but I can never decide what I want. Provincial? Stuffy. Country? Casual. Colonial? Too George Washington-y.

I tromped to the basement for my normal "the table is too small solution"- a card table tacked on the end. I was completely non-plussed. This looked awful and I was so totally over the shabby chic. Now what? It's 2 days before Christmas. Tables are big and something that large won't fit in my VW. Nor will the chairs. Sigh. It would be pretty mean to make one of the boys sit in the kitchen alone just to cut out a chair.

I drove to a furniture store and walked in- sullen. I found exactly what I wanted. More depression, why didn't I do this in April? "So," I say sweetly, "any chance this could be delivered tomorrow?" YES!

So, tonight may you enjoy good food at a table that is big enough for all the people that you can cram around it. Merry Christmas.

Cookies for Santa

A&P used to believe in Santa. At some point along the line, Peter figured us out. Despite my very best efforts to...

# Disguise my handwriting on tags
# Speak of Santa Claus in the third person- no matter what
# Place the Santa key on the door so Santa could get in without a chimney
# Control the Christmas Eve, profanity laced, toy-depackaging-putting-together-nightmare that is the Playmobil Airport

However, Andrew remained blissfully unaware. We thought surely the elf was out of the toy bag but realized the closer we got to Christmas last year- he had no clue. This was tough- do you out Santa yourself or let the jerks on the bus break his 5th grade, nearly eleven year old heart?

So, one day last year, a few weeks before Christmas we had THE TALK. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the harder conversation would be ratting out Saint Nick. But..

HE SOBBED
HE CRIED
HE MOANED

And, in the end broke my heart instead.

I felt lousy for a few days and so did he- he would spontaneously burst into tears and say "You LIED to me ALL these YEARS!"

A year post hence, we've recovered and Andrew joyfully helped me make the cookie dough for our baking frenzy. Peter was unwilling to get his hands dirty but participated in the gingerbread cut outs and the obligatory eating of all the broken cookies.

And, Santa will still come... but we're all in on the secret now and A&P can put their own toys together.