Interrupted Wanderlust: Spiked Eggnog Was Made For Mothers

Spiked Eggnog Was Made For Mothers

7 Comments posted by Kristi on Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 9:07 PM

Unless you come from one of the five intact, nuclear families left on planet Earth, you more than likely spend the holidays shuttling yourself to various relatives' houses far and wide for multiple family gatherings.

The hubs and I have four sets of parents. Both of our parents are divorced and each parent has remarried (or re-partnered), some several times over.

We've spent the past four days getting together with three of the four parents. We have one more gathering a week from today. The get-togethers are mostly fun, but always exhausting. I am completely spent from dressing up, packing up, and loading and unloading three little kids, and completely done peeling the twins' fingers off precious family heirlooms and out of electrical sockets in non-babyproofed homes.

Oh, and if you're my Facebook friend and you're posting things like: "Looking forward to another relaxing day spent eating leftovers by the fireplace while reading a book and sipping spiced eggnog. Ahhh...the holidays," it was me who slashed your tires last night while you were enjoying that fire.

Of course, it's only been an insane degree of crazy here 90% of the time. Christmas dinner at my grandma's was fun (as was Christmas II: The Leftovers, the very next day) because there were more than enough eager hands to mind the hellcats while I debated the veracity of Faux News with my very Republican relatives. And watching Isabella experience Christmas morning with an off-the-charts degree of excitement was fun too, which almost made up for the fact that she didn't fall asleep the night before until almost 10pm because she was terrified that Santa's elves would come into her room, scan her with an infrared gingerbread "Creatures Stirring" monitor, and report the findings back to Santa. Thanks, Prep and Landing!

The highlights:

Anyone care to wager a guess how many photos I snapped trying to get a halfway decent one of Isabella first on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas Day? Here's a hint: Your guess is Way.Too.Low.

Isabella had fun putting out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning began around 7:30am. While Santa delivered new gifts to Isabella, he sensed that the twins' behavior had been less than stellar this year. As a result, he re-gifted some never-even-unwrapped-because-they-received-so-damn-many birthday presents for Luci and Nico. They sensed the subterfuge, and decided to stick it to Santa by playing with cat toys all morning instead.

Isabella took a break from opening presents to update her Facebook status and Skype with her peeps in Reykjavik.

One of the favorite presents this year was from Aunt Karrie.

Her monogrammed chair in her favorite color gave her a great seat to open the rest of her presents...

and to trap her brother in a death-grip later on.

Speaking of Aunt Karrie, Isabella was totally the president of her fan club this Christmas. From the second she flew in from Seattle to the moment she left, Isabella was All About Aunt Karrie, All The Time.

Nicholas vowed to never again spend another Christmas alone under the mistletoe, so he hijacked Isabella's laptop to set up his eHarmony profile.

Because I am a complete glutton for punishment, I tried to snap a Christmas photo of all three before we left for dinner at my grandma's.

Welcome to Project Fail.

I set my expectations a whole lot lower when trying to take one of the twins. Hey-at least they're not screaming.

"Now that she's gone...How YOU doing?"

I've recently realized that much like it was in 1993, most of my wardrobe is black. I am wearing black in almost every recent photo I have of myself. Nine Inch Nails 4-Evah.

The holidays are just about over. I'm going to take a page from Luci, and enjoy the remaining days to their fullest.

How have you been celebrating the holidays?

7 Responses to “Spiked Eggnog Was Made For Mothers”

# Jeni 12:12 AM

I will join you in the tire slashing of the naive holiday relaxers, Christmas started the 23rd for us and will not officially be over until our last get together on Tuesday. So ready to be done. Great pictures of all the kiddos, Isabella and Nico look so much alike!
# tracey.becker1@gmail.com 12:20 AM

I love this update! And Mr. Nico is stylin that pose there, hon. Yo baby!

You DID get a good shot of Isabella on Karrie's lap, at least!
# Jesser 9:54 AM

Very funny/cute update!! Love all the photos, even the cranky ones. Glad you guys had a nice, if crazy Christmas. Ours was pretty nice. I refuse to travel over the holidays, so Matt's family (Dad, Stepmom, Sis and BIL) came to us and my family (Mom's side) is all here, so we mostly did everything together as a big group. Not quite as terrifying as you might think. Overall it was very nice! :)
# Sunny 9:33 PM

I can't even imagine lugging the kiddos all over town for four Christmases! (Speaking of which, did you see that movie? It was actually kinda funny, probably because I was expecting it to suck.) I imagine that 2010 will naturally be easier on you -- with the kiddos being older and fewer major changes that rank so highly on the stress scale. But I'm hoping you get a chance to sip a latte by the fire while curling up with a good book -- and laugh knowingly while I post about how insane I was to think I could handle newborn twins and a toddler.
# Lisanne 12:05 PM

You crack me up. Seriously. LOVE the photos and the captions! :)
# Nonnie 2:52 AM

This was a great update! It looks like you had a pretty decent holiday season even if you did have to deal with all the hubbub.
# Nonnie 2:53 AM

This was a great update! It looks like you had a pretty decent holiday season even if you did have to deal with all the hubbub.

Happy New Year!

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