The One About The Time Santa Nearly Blew Everything

Before I say a word about what I want to say, let the record show that if your name is Alexis and you live in the same house as me, you do not have permission to read this post until you are old enough to drive.

I'm not kidding.

Shut it down, kiddo.

OK, then.

Now that little eyes have stomped away in a fit of goody-two-shoed annoyance (seriously, I've never met a child so driven by her own self-conscious), let's recap some things that have been said in this space in the past.

1. Santa wraps.

2. Santa stops at our house, regardless of where we may be on Christmas Eve. He's cool enough to realize that we can't always transport items back-and-forth if we happen to be out of town for Christmas. That has come in super handy, particularly the year that Santa delivered a bike.

With that out of the way, HAHAHAHAHAHA this is the year we nearly screwed everything up.

First of all, in order to wrap all of the little stocking stuffers and such, Santa needs to be able to work into the wee hours of the night. Santa can't stay awake long enough for craziness like that as of late. So, Santa delegated the task to an elf. Unfortunately, the elf isn't quite as creative with oddly shaped and oversized items, so Santa's elf didn't finish the job on the assigned night.

But ... Santa couldn't finish the job either. Santa constantly has a curly-haired cheerleader leeched on, so Santa couldn't get free to complete the last task this year. Furthermore, the Big Thing that Santa is delivering is BIG and Santa couldn't carry it anywhere without help from a small army.

So. It didn't all get wrapped in advance.

No matter, though! Every year when we leave to visit family in Indianapolis, Alexis is an eager beaver and runs out to the car at least half an hour before everyone else is ready to leave. She gets herself buckled in and settles in with her Kindle or whatever and just sits there. Ready.

No one will ever be able to accuse her of holding up the show.

While she's sitting there, completely self-occupied, Santa usually creates a little havoc in our living room. Gifts appear, stockings are stuffed, all that fun stuff. Santa set out to do exactly that again this year, but there was a problem.

The Big Thing was too big. Santa couldn't move it up the flight of stairs it needed to travel. Not only that, but Santa wasn't sure where the smaller stocking stuffers were hiding. So, Santa stood in the living room and waited for the elf to reappear inside the house and help.

SURELY the elf would remember that help was required. It had been communicated.

But Santa stood there. And stood there. And then Santa noticed a pillow that needed straightened. Then Santa noticed some garbage that needed to be thrown away. Then Santa organized some books, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned up some junk mail, straightened some ornaments on the tree, and ...

totally forgot the purpose of still being in the house.

A solid ten minutes had gone by and Santa just plain forgot why she was in the house, so she grabbed her purse and ran out to the driveway.

It took about half an hour for us to figure out that we had screwed up. By then, there was no point in turning back, so Plan B had to be put in action. Plan B meant that the magic would happen while Alexis slept. Which, if you've been here a while, you know that is one heck of a gamble. That child does not believe in sleep. Never has, never will. In her words, "It's too boring."

But we risked it and returned from Indianapolis late at night, with the hope that Alexis would fall asleep in the car and then allow herself to be carried straight to bed.

It worked. She fell asleep an hour from the house and let herself get carried to bed. But then, as I was tucking her in, she decided she was done with sleep for the night and started carrying on a full conversation about all sorts of things.

I have never in my life thrown so many shiny things at a conversation. Somehow, some way, I managed to keep her from remembering that she was excited to be home for a reason and that reason was PRESENTS! WOOOO! PRESENTS!

We pulled it off, but barely.

This time.

Now here's to hoping Santa picked the right things for her.