Santa brought Scott an air compressor and a brad nailer. He left us both a new 32 inch TV. And he brought me a new hutch to go in our entryway.
We sat at the top of the stairs waiting for everyone to get ready (Aaron wasn't sure he wanted to get out of bed). Owen was very happy, and I got some cute smiling pictures of him while we waited.
Nate wasn't quite so chipper.
Eventually they all gathered at the top of the stairs and I took the traditional "top of the stairs" picture.
Then I warned the kids before they headed downstairs. Santa had left a lot for me and Scott, but it didn't look like he had left much for the kids. I told them that maybe they hadn't been very good this year, and not to be too disappointed when they came downstairs. They all said it was ok, and came down to see what Santa had left them. Here's the amazing part. Each one of them came down to only a stocking and no other presents, and they all were genuinely happy about the stockings. Aaron pulled out a bag of licorice out of his stocking, and declared "This is the best Christmas EVER!".
They all explored the contents of their stockings, then realized that they each had note with their stockings. They each had a clue telling them to look on the tree and each was assigned a number. On the tree was an envelope with the number 1 on it. Nate was number 1, so Savannah helped him read the note inside the envelope. It had a clue to look on the kitchen table. They all ran in to the table and found an envelope with #2 on it. Aaron was number 2, so they helped him read his clue. It said to look in the shoe closet. There they found a #3 envelope. Sara read the clue telling them to look in the doll house in the girls' room. There they found #4. Josh read that clue telling them to look on top of the white tractor shelf. #5 was Savannah. It told them to look out the bonus room windows. They all screamed as they realized that just maybe they would find the basketball hoop that they'd been hoping for out there. They all ran to the window and looked out to discover not only a basketball hoop, but also a tetherball and see-saw. They were beyond excited. I have a video of all of it that I'm hoping to post on here later (Scott's parents gave us a new video camera, but I have to read the instruction manual to figure out how to transfer video). It was so fun to see the joy on their faces. It didn't take them long to get their shoes and coats on and go out to play.
We let the kids play outside for a bit, then brought them in to open presents. They were thrilled to open Grandma Jo and Grandpa Mike's gift--a Kinect for our XBox 360. Marc and Kenna gave them a game to go with the Kinect, as did Grandma and Grandpa Sorensen. Other highlights were Old Navy flare jeans for Savannah (she loves the flare), a new quilt for the girls new bed (we gave them our old king mattress, I'll take pictures of the new room soon), puzzles for Sara, new pajamas for Aaron, socks and underwear for Josh, twistable colored pencils for Nate, and so many other wonderful things that I can't list them all.
We tried to clean up the mess a bit, then the kids went back outside to play. They kept coming in and out, and soon the house was feeling a bit chilly. I told them they needed to stay in for a bit so we could let the heat catch back up. But, we soon realized the heat wasn't working. For some reason, our furnace was not working at all. Scott spent the next hour trying to figure out what was wrong, but couldn't. In the meantime, our house had dropped to a chilly 64 degrees. We decided we better light the pilot light in the fireplace so we could turn it on for heat (we keep the pilot light off, so the kids don't turn on the fireplace and burn themselves when we aren't in the room). The fire helped downstairs, but upstairs was still pretty cold (63 degrees and dropping). I dug out a little space heater and placed it in the bonus room, and we all braved the cold so we could try out the new XBox Kinect. We had about an hour to play before we had to head to Grandma Jo's for dinner. I must say, technology is amazing. We all were fascinated at the "coolness" of the new games.
We went to Grandma's house for dinner around 3:30. After dinner, the cousins exchanged presents. We stayed till around 8, then loaded our tired children into the suburban and returned to our cold house (Scott hadn't wanted to leave the fireplace on while we were gone). We came home, turned the fireplace on, and made beds for all the kids on the floor around the fireplace so they could stay warm during the night.
Other than the heat going out, it was a wonderful and magic Christmas. We couldn't have asked for a happier day.
(The next day we called a repairman and he came out and fixed our furnace--a new igniter--for the not so bargain price of $250. Not what you want the day after Christmas when you've spent so much on presents, but at least we have a warm house again.)
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