Now that I’ve officially purchased everything that I wanted/needed to for Christmas (shopping today was AWESOME, the store was all but empty and I was in and out in under 15 minutes), I’m feeling very excited. I’m a little thrown off because in the past I’ve often done the final wee leg of shopping on the 24th, so part of me feels like Christmas should be tomorrow.

There are still a few things that need to be taken care of. We went to visit Santa today but apparently he was up at the North Pole to check on the workshop or some such thing because he wasn’t there today. Boo! But I was able to find out that he’ll be there on the 24th at 11 am so we’ll just go right when they open. We’ll have plenty of time to get ready for that since I have every intention of getting the kids up at 7 am. I know Breanna would sleep tomorrow night even with the excitement, but Hayley’s not fond of sleep on the most boring of nights, let alone Christmas Eve. I figure anything I can do to tire her out will only help me.

I also still have to wrap but I’m hoping to take a different approach this year. Usually we keep the gifts at George’s parents’ house in their basement until the kids (finally) fall asleep. Once they’re out cold, George drives over to pick them up, brings them home, and then the wrapping starts. Since this is usually all around 11 pm I’m not thrilled with it. I’m often more stressed about the wrapping than the shopping itself.

This year I’m going to find out if George’s family will be home tomorrow (they should be, as far as I know). Then I’m going to go to their house while George occupies the kids and I’ll wrap over there. It will be less stressful for me and I’ll get adult conversation as well. Granted, I can get adult conversation by wrapping at home but at that hour on the night before Christmas usually means my adult conversation is peppered with a lot of swearing.

The only other thing we need to do tomorrow is bake a quick batch of cookies so we have some to leave out for Santa. I still don’t have any eggnog at all (gasp) so hopefully I can grab a carton of that as well so I can eat a few cookies with that too.

Why don’t they sell eggnog in bags like they do with milk? Now that would be a marketing plan!