Lost that Christmas feeling?

It was an interesting Christmas this year - not necessarily in a good way. Things were going ok - we went up to Charlie's new house for Christmas Eve and enjoyed being with the family. But a bunch of people left before we had done our tradition of reading the Christmas story in Luke 2 and our family story - A Christmas Dress for Ellen. For me that tradition just defines Christmas for me. I had been looking forward to it all season. When it was time for us to get the kids home I asked if we were going to do it this year but was just ignored so we packed up and headed home through pea-soup fog. We got part way home and realized that Lance had left his work phone at Charlie's so we had to turn around and go back to get it. The GPS died so we couldn't depend on it to help us find our way in the fog. Luckily Lance had paid attention and was probably guided by the Spirit a little to get us back to Charlie's house in Alpine. We got the phone and headed back home through the ever thickening fog. When we got home the kids were wired but we got them calmed down enough to do the two Christmas stories. We struggled to get them all settled in one room because my mom was staying over with us. JJ of course was the worst about settling down. We thought we had them settled - Lance and I finished the wrapping and got the stuff set out and ready to go and crawled in to bed about midnight. About 2 JJ gets up the first time for a potty break. He got up around 3 the next time saying he couldn't sleep. We told him to go back to bed and he did this time. About 4 he gets up again and at this point has woken up everybody. So Lance and I are pretty mad now because standing around arguing with JJ at 4 in the morning is not our idea of a restful night's sleep. I start threatening to take away all his gifts. I was pretty confident that this would calm him down immediately because he wouldn't want that to happen. He knows by now that we make good on threats like that. But he just keeps on escalating higher and higher so after warning him two more times and trying to reason with him I say I've had enough. Everybody is awake at this point although my mom is hiding in her room pretending like nothing is going on. Lance makes JJ go lay down on the kitchen floor and lays down next to him. I try to go back to bed but I am to angry and upset for sleep to come so I go out into the living room to watch some tv. JJ still thinks we are joking when we told him he couldn't have his gifts. We tell him in no uncertain terms that he isn't getting the gifts. I even go through all the gifts and put his in a pile planning to box them up. At this point another of our traditions is ruined because we always have the kids come in all at once with the video camera rolling to see the gifts in the morning. Lance leaves JJ on the floor in the kitchen to "sleep" and comes to sit with me and watch tv. JJ fusses and cries but we just leave him there. At least the other kids are getting a chance to get some sleep. When they start waking up Lance takes them in to our bedroom and puts on a movie while I try to catch some zzz's on the couch. Finally my mom gets up so we bring the kids out. I am so mad at this point I don't take pictures and I don't even want to talk to JJ. He sits over by my mom and she sneaks him her gifts to him and lets him open the gifts that are to her. The plan was for JJ to learn his lesson and then we would let him open them the next day. This plan was, as usual, completely undermined by my mom. Things were settling down finally amidst the wrapping paper frenzy. JJ wasn't complaining and Lance and I were willing to let it go that Mom was sneaking him presents. All of a sudden Mom gets up and goes to the bathroom and we hear theatrical sobs coming from the bathroom. Lance and I just look at each other like "what the heck?" We try to ignore her but I am getting angry again at the manipulation and drama. She goes into the bedroom and talks to Hannah and Asher telling them how unfair we are being to JJ and sends them out to tell me and Lance. At this point I am no longer angry at JJ I am angry at her! I am so pissed off at this ruined Christmas that I want to scream. So I say "fine, I don't care anymore about helping my child learn an important lesson - go open your presents JJ." He is delighted of course. I go and start breakfast because the sooner it is over the sooner that whole day will be over. He had started opening his presents while Lance was downstairs so he came up and was like "wait what are you doing?" At that point I didn't care about anything except trying to not scream at everyone or go running from the house. I really wasn't in the mood to go and try and make chit chat with the Madigan side of the family but I did it for Lance and they were very welcoming and kind. It ended up really helping me to get calmed down enough to be able to prepare my Relief Society lesson. So Christmas 2010 has come and gone - it was a memorable one although I would really like to forget it. I am willling to shoulder some of the blame for letting my anger get the best of me but I am sure of one thing - we won't be doing things the same way next year. There will be some big changes in our Christmas 2011 itinerary.