Yesterday we made gingerbread houses, mostly to kill time while we waited for Santa to call us.  I told my neighbor what we were up to when she stopped by to deliver the homemade baked goods she had spent all day yesterday assembling, and she said, “Look at you!  I’m so impressed!”

“I  bought kits, at Target,” I told her.

“Oh thank god,” she said, “I was starting to worry a little.”

I didn’t know how the gingerbread house assembly would go; there was a distinct possibility that at least one child would come unglued, either because the whole thing was too hard or because he had icing on his hands. But you know what? It was a lot of fun, and no one cried! Not even me!

Charlie ate most of his decorative icing, which was just disgusting. By the end of the project, he looked like a wee little vampire, with red stuff all over his face. Gross.

Henry really got into decorating his house; he figured out how to make icicles and spent a lot of time carefully adding them to the eaves. He also meticulously decorated the house’s little tree, with green icing and carefully placed candy balls. It was amazing.

Best of all, though, he got icing ALL OVER HIS HANDS and just licked it off. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Charlie’s house was more of a mess — one of his snowmen kept falling over, leading to some possibly inappropriate egg nog related jokes — but he had a huge time eating the icing and jabbering along in a sugar-induced frenzy of cuteness. And when he finished his snowmen, he held them up and said, “Look, Henry, they’re BROTHERS!”

I may have teared up a little at that. Possibly.

And then! just when we thought it couldn’t get ANY better! Santa called!!!

We put him on speakerphone, which was a whole big fun thing for the kids. They were amazed because he knew their names, and what they were doing in school, and what they wanted for Christmas. He told them about the elves and the reindeer and how cold it was at the North Pole.  He laughed a lot and said, “Wonderful!” to all their crazy news about what they were up to.

We set up our call with Santa through Santa Speaking — you can read all about it here.  But I will tell you this right now — that call from Santa easily bought us one more year of Christmas magic; Henry is just at the age where his friends are starting either to doubt Santa’s existence, or to know for a fact that he’s not real.  And honestly, we’re not ready to give that up; we’re not ready for the kids to be so smart and worldly just yet.

This morning my kitchen smells like gingerbread, which is nice, even if it is completely inedible.