Doing Our Part to Lighten Santa's Load

My kids have been so excited and counting down the days - not to Christmas, but to the arrival of Fred the Elf. And just like clockwork, he showed up the morning of December 1st. I had forgotten he was coming and couldn't figure out what Amelia was doing running from room to room until she announced, "I can't find Fred anywhere!" That's right, Fred is here somewhere. And sure enough, the girls found him. Apparently he came in by horse this time.

Unfortunately, the fact that Fred was here did little to hold off the tears, yelling, screaming and tantrums that went on here this morning. (I hate mornings like this - and it was a bad one.) I should say, however, that the 6 and under crowd were great. They worked hard to get everything done and get ready on time. Not so much the other 2. (Of course, Shawn is not included in this either, being out of town and all.) Did I mention tantrums? Please note that the tantrum throwers were both above the age of 8. Isn't that fun? I thought so. But since I was also involved in quite a bit of the yelling and the resulting unhappy feelings around here, I guess we need lumps of coal all around - me included. There was even some "discussion" about the fact that I am the meanest Mom in the world, to which I replied, "Yes, I am absolutely the meanest Mom in the world. Now that we've established that, can we get on with the morning?" Like I said, just doing our part to lighten Santa's load on Christmas. If we're lucky, maybe we can get back on the nice list. In the meantime, I'm just trying to remember that some days are like that. Even in Australia.