'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

...when after getting to bed after midnight, I couldn't sleep. I had some responsibilities for the Christmas morning service at church that were going through my mind--the music team had been unable to practice on Friday night, I needed to ask some people to read scripture passages in the morning, and I hadn't double-checked the powerpoint. Neighbors and their guests were chatting loudly outside since most people here stay up late into the night on Christmas Eve.

I was also debating whether the cinnamon rolls would be done in time before we needed to leave for church if I started them at 7:30, when we told the kids they could wake us up or if I should have set an alarm for earlier. And Scott's cold was making him snore. Loudly.

Finally, around two, I decided to move out onto the couch. Taking my pillow, I went into Anna's room and tried to sneak off one of her blankets from her bed. She has four or five on there, so I knew she wouldn't miss it. I went out to the couch, but Anna appeared, Cindy Lou Who-style. I had woken her up.

I ended up getting in at the bottom of her bed and covering my head to protect myself from the glare of her extremely bright nightlight. It was tricky because I needed enough cover to keep the light out, but not so much that I felt like I was suffocating. I could still hear the snoring, the people outside, and the neighbors upstairs coming in. And I still was debating about how to manage cinnamon rolls, but given the hour, I decided against trying to get up any earlier than 7:30. Eventually, I drifted off into a very light sleep.

Sometime after that, Scott woke up and noticed my absence from the bed. He was confused because I never, ever vacate the bed at night. He looked, but I wasn't on the couch and he didn't see me in the kids' rooms. Since I was buried under covers over my head at the foot of Anna's bed, and the middle part of the bed is has a canopy, I was expertly camouflaged.

My poor husband stood in the living room early in the wee hours of Christmas morning, wondering where I could be.

He heard people talking in the hallway. Loudly. And finally realized that he heard them too well. Our door was open. It often is these days, with Anna going back and forth between our elderly neighbor's place and ours. Our door is at the end of a hallway, and we don't see it unless we're going in or out, so we just hadn't noticed. For about eight hours.

Scott closed the door and started to freak out. Where else could I be? Was I sleepwalking? Had my pillow and I been nabbed by reveling neighbors?

He eventually did recheck the beds and discovered my hide-out. He said it looked like a very awkward sleeping position. Which it was.

So, it took him a while to get back to sleep.

At some point in the early morning, I decided to get up and check the time. It was seven, so I went ahead and got the cinnamon rolls going. They were ready and perfect in plenty of time.

The church service was sweet.

We got a last-minute invitation from friends who had extra space for Christmas dinner and took them up on it. Their younger son and Justin are buddies, and I was so tired that I was happy to put our turkey dinner off for a day. We ate an amazing French meal, including our first Christmas goose.

There was no snoring, reveling, or planning last night, so we all slept very well.

And we had our small turkey dinner this evening.