oh, you better watch out! ...

i'm tellin' you why...

santa clause is coming to town!!!

there you have it... this officially wraps up
my little santa's comin' to town mini series.
i hope you enjoyed it!

. . .


it's almost two in the morning.

it's officially christmas day.

i just finished wrapping isaac's presents.

we could not find a cute stocking for him,
so we are using one of the my slippers
{seen here from this self-portrait taken when he was in my tummy about this time last year}.

{don't worry, i washed them really well first.}

i'm exhausted, going on only four hours of sleep from friday evening.

tonight was magical.

almost too much to write about.

do you remember those sweet little vintage candies we grew up with every christmas...

you know the ones... with the different stripes of color woven in each one?

remember some were a little bit coconut flavored?

do you know the ones?

if you know what i'm talking about,

you'll remember they were all so tasty... there was never a favorite flavor,

for each one made up the experience {as a whole}
of a sweet moment of digging in to find that perfect candy,

even though they were all perfect.

well, that's how this night was.

so many sweet memories.

i couldn't possibly pick one as being better than the other.

it was the sum of the parts that made it special...

not one specific part.

but there are a few of those sweet gems that stand out as i type half asleep,

on my way to bed, stocking cap and all.

one was listening to nat king cole's version of o tannembaum

as i sat on the couch and nursed isaac.

it was overwhelmingly special.

i had learned that song as a child,

and sang it somewhere in some sort of christmas program.

to now be holding a child of my own with that memory of my childhood was indescribable.

we also listened to the capenter's christmas cd,

we watched about a half hour of it's a wonderful life together,

we sat on the ground and played with toys together,

with not much more than the cozy glow of the christmas tree

and some christmas music to set the mood.

cheese, sausage, crackers, appetizers, wine, egg nog.

cookies, too.

we forgot to break those out, though.

i hope santa knows which cupboard we store them in.

we giggled.

i got teary-eyed.

i couldn't believe this was actually happening.

we were sitting there with our son on christmas eve.
i had to really focus on that,
as not doing so purposefully
would have resulted in me just going through the motions
of the many things i do each day to care for isaac.
i had to remind myself to be amazed about where we are at
and how we got there.

there were still some missing pieces...

some sweetnesses that were not in the candy dish.

and though the night was full of the sweetest of memories,

the ones that weren't there to fill up the jar

were the source of an ache i could feel underneath it all.
some call that bitter/sweet.
i just call it sweet, but shy of how sweet it could have been.
i might be bitter if i let myself.
but it was more of an ache than anything.

i think it may have been a good thing

that i was so tired... so as not to dwell on that part.

i might have missed the joyful part.

mr. b. and isaac are sleeping right now.
and i am not far behind them.

isaac had woken up once since we put him down.

normally, i would go in and try to comfort him

and get him to go back to sleep on his own.

but we felt an urge to go get him

and bring him into the living room

to see all the wrapped gifts under the tree

that had not been there just a couple hours earlier, before he went to bed.

we put him down right in front of the gifts,
and he just sat and stared while talking to them.

it was beyond precious.

then it was back to bedtime for bonzo!

and he was given fair warning... "sleep well tonight,

or no blueberry pancakes and presents in the morning!"

=)

i'm far too tired to keep writing.

and though it's officially christmas,

i have no steam left

to post the photos of isaac that i took for a christmas card
they will have to wait.

who's reading blogs on christmas anyway, right?

in fact, who even has time to write on them?

oh... that's right.

i do.

but at a price.

i really should be sleeping right now.

and what's worse, santa knows i am awake,

so i expect to find coal in my stocking tomorrow.

maybe i can get a smaller amount if i hurry and get to bed now...

that said,
zzz.