Christmas Eve

After all our Christmas celebrations and preparations, we were so excited for Christmas Eve to arrive!  I'd planned on Katie Anne writing a letter and drawing a picture to leave for Santa - I had special paper, stickers, and had punched out cute diecuts at school for her to use.  Then, I thought the kids and I could work on a gingerbread house in the afternoon.  Then, we were planning on heading over to Doc and VJ's house for dinner and baking Christmas cookies!  Katie Anne and I had made a special trip to the store and bought sugar cookie dough, chocolate and vanilla icing, and lots of holiday sprinkles!  I'd bought both kids a special pair of Christmas Eve pajamas and a new copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  We were all ready for a special Christmas Eve!

Unfortunately, none of those precious things were able to happen on Christmas Eve ... because poor little Katie Anne woke up terribly sick on Christmas Eve morning!  She got sick around 7:00 am on Christmas Eve, and she was throwing up all morning.  She couldn't keep anything down until almost lunchtime.  I literally couldn't clean up one round of vomiting before she started the next one.  Luckily, my dad was able to help me in the morning and my mom was able to help me in the afternoon until Saunders got off work because I had two sick, sick babies on my hands.  Poor SJ was running a fever all day, was very lethargic, didn't want to eat - and of course he was still on his breathing treatments every 4 hours.  Then, we had little bitty KA throwing her guts up every ten minutes.  It was so pitiful ... she kept saying, "This is the baddest I've ever been!  This is the baddest I've ever been!"  (She meant sickest, not baddest, but it was still so sad.)  Even after she stopped throwing up, she was weak, pale, and tired.  So, poor KA's Christmas Eve plans consisted of laying on the couch, watching Christmas specials, drinking Sprite and eating crackers.

Even though she didn't feel like doing our Christmas plans, we still wanted to spread out the reindeer food for Rudolph and friends.  So, we headed out onto the front porch just before bedtime to sprinkle the food on the walkway.  I asked KA to pose in by the trees and the front door for me - you can tell by her little face that she'd had a rough day.

Sprinkling the goodies for the reindeer:

Our sick little Christmas girl!

We also weren't going to leave Santa out in the cold with no snack, even though KA hadn't felt up to baking and decorating cookies.  I'd made some pretzel and white chocolate treats for Saunders's fellow bank employees, and VJ had sent us gingerbread men from Agan's when we couldn't come to Christmas Eve dinner.  But Katie Anne didn't think Santa wanted sweet treats ... she thought he'd rather have an Agan's roll!

VJ had sent us Agan's rolls as well, and Katie Anne thought Santa would like one.  She said, "Santa gets a lot of cookies.  I think he'd like something different." 

That's Mommy's Diet Mountain Dew in the picture - not Santa's!  She kept the drink traditional and left Santa a cup of milk.

Katie Anne wisely decided to leave the goodies on the coffee table instead of the hearth ... Agan's rolls are very tempting to two little Christmas doggies.  Here's KA with the treats for Santa just before she settled down to dream of sugar plums!

Fortunately, Santa still came and visited our sick little kiddos ... and he left all kinds of good surprises for them while they were asleep!