Over in Eighteen Minutes

The Oracle and I dragged our depleted selves to bed at 1:30 or 2:00 a.m., and the kids were in our faces bright and early at 7:10 with elated cries of "Santa came!!" My first though revolved around their inability to get out of bed that early or that quickly on a school day and a solemn vow to never again give in to their pleas for "ten more minutes." Hmph.

I grudgingly crawled out of bed, and The Oracle did the same. I threatened all sorts of mayhem if they so much as dared to touch a present before we had the chance to use the bathroom, and paper-shredding chaos ensued the minute we entered the living room.

This is B with is favorite present.


B is a huge railroad lover. He is forever on the look and listen for trains. In our area, we are blessed with a fair number of freight and passenger lines, none of which are too close for comfort, but they are close enough for our listening pleasure.



This isn't the best picture of B, but his joyous yells of "A refrigerator car!" make it wonderful anyway.




This is B and V with two other favorites, her pink feathery boa and the game, "Gassy Gus," which involves game cards full of nasty foods and lots of flatulence. It's a four-year-old boy's dream gift, and it's a post all its own.



I took lots of pictures Christmas morning, better than these (with my clutter in the background - ICK!), but despite the red-eye reduction setting on my camera, my blue-eyed children always come out with red eyes, and I haven't yet mastered the skill and steady hand required to make them blue again on the computer.

Anyway, back to the post title. The Oracle spent countless hours working for extra spending money, I spent forever stressing over money and shopping in the wee hours, and a mere eighteen minutes after the roused us from our much needed sleep -- including the grownups' pre-carnage potty stops -- our two little darlings unwrapped every present including their stockings.
I wanted to crawl back into bed, but the little buggers kept hounding me to remove packaging. In years past, Santa labored until sunrise cutting through thick plastic bubble packaging and wore his fingerprints off removing the twisty wires that strap toys to the cardboard inside the plastic. How much does this cheap plastic crap cost before adding the Fort Knox packaging?