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It snowed a lot on Christmas Eve.  It was a lot of fun to come home and see "elf" tracks in our front yard!  The boys were thrilled!  You never know when Santa’s Helpers will be checking on us!  This has been (by far) the best year so far because both boys "get it".

While Bryan was out shoveling our walks, Neal came up to me and said he was going to do something really funny … wear his pajamas from LAST year THIS year.  I knew what he was hinting at but, I didn’t want Bryan to miss the big moment.  (It’s amazing how fast kids will get ready for bed on Christmas Eve!) 

The boys LOVED their pajamas.  (I found the BEN 10 pajamas on eBay)  We baked our cookies, read a story, put out the cookies with milk, said our prayers and got both boys in bed … and then it happened … at midnight, I heard someone in the bathroom.  Bryan and I were in the family room wrapping presents and finishing projects.  It had to be Neal! 

I went down the hall to help him hurry back to bed.  I tried to subtly ask him if he’d seen anything.  The smarty pants told me that he didn’t look!  I had laid in bed with him for a few minutes when he started crying.  I asked him why and he was worried that Santa would come when he was awake and he wouldn’t come back when he was asleep.  I showed him the Santa Tracker on the Internet and Santa was in Minneapolis.  That meant that he wouldn’t be here until between 3 and 4 am and he had plenty of time to get to sleep.  He went to bed and everything was okay until we were unwrapping presents the next day.  Riley opened a gift from Santa and Neal said that he’d seen that gift in the family room the night before.  He also let it slip that he’d peeked in the front room and LUCKILY there were no presents under the tree and nothing in the stockings!  Man, did we have to thing fast!  We told Neal that as we were wrapping the night before, we’d decided not to give it to Riley.  And that it was a good thing, too because Santa gave it to him.  I think we survived that one!  

Is there anyone else who sometimes has a hard time with this?  Is it really okay?  Does it affect my integrity?  hugs.