Thankful Thursday--Christmas Morning Edition

I woke up with a start. It was Christmas morning and I still needed to get my kids' stockings ready. Imagine my surprise to see a very swollen gray hiking stocking already at the mantel. My husband had walked two miles in unploughed snow shortly after a snowstorm to go to a fabric store and buy me knitting needles and a pink soy-blend yarn. He also had stuffed my stocking with as many free tutorials he snagged from the store. It's funny because he was not initially enthusiastic when I told him I wanted to learn. While showing him all my blogging friends' knitting projects he had said, "I am so thankful you don't knit. What a waste of time and money." His jaw dropped when I said I wanted to learn, too. I think he felt sorry for me when he saw me trying to learn with wooden chopsticks as needles. For the record, I can't get past casting on.

Back to my stocking stuffing. I had planned to use Koko and Cheeky's knee socks, but they were so skinny and small and hardly anything fit inside. But then I thought to use my husband's soccer socks! And since he had two different color pairs, I had a blue and red stocking for them!

I filled them with natural jello packs, soy rocks, crayons, markers, notepads, stickers, and a harmonica that I had saved from my high school years. I didn't plan much of this, but was thankful for a stash of stuff that I had accumulated for future use.

Finally, I woke them up and tried to give a crash course on Santa. Before, Koko thought Santa was Noah and I had never bothered to correct her because it was so cute.
Anyway, they were both thrilled and they liked the train set and pounding bench. Phew! I was a little worried that they would not care for the train set.

We went outside and distributed cards and chocolate to our neighbors, and arriving back to our house, I had a pang of sadness. I wished we were with my parents or at the least had friends over this Christmas, but all of it dissipated while watching my children and my husband creating our homemade nativity scene.

Cheeky's still satiny soft foot finding its home on top of my own, her new catch phrase, "I touch!" Koko's insistence that Jesus literally became a baby every Christmas and that we had to make him a cake, (She wanted to give Baby Jesus a car for his present, but at seeing her train set, she said, "This is a train set for Cheeky, me, and Baby Jesus.") and the concentration my husband gave in molding the Nativity Mary gave me enough strength to cook something special (Galbi Jim, crescent with brie, potato salad) despite not having guests and waking up so painfully early. After all, Jesus and my family are my most precious guests. Sometimes I forget that.