I had hoped to watch the Polar Express like we usually do on Christmas Eve, but Bitty had other plans and Cuddlebug and Bearhug were busy with their video games. I decided it wasn't really worth the possible meltdown to pull rank on Bitty and insist on watching a Christmas movie (haha) so we baked cookies with World of Zoo in the background (on the Wii) instead.
Bitty likes to be my "counter helper" so he sat on the counter and helped pour the ingredients into the bowl and stir. Once the dough and frosting were made he went back to his game while I rolled out the cookie dough. Bearhug and Cuddlebug came by every few minutes to help cut out the cookie shapes. I was sooo amazed at how carefully they cut out the shapes so they wouldn't overlap, something I usually have to repeatedly remind them to do. They got a little impatient whenever the cookie sheet would fill up and they had to wait to do another one (I had two cookie sheets going so at any given time we had one baking, and another either cooling or being filled up with new cookies, so the wait wasn't *too* long).
When it came time to frost all three of the boys wanted to help with that, so I brought a couple of plates of already-cooled cookies to the table and set them up with bowls of frosting.
Normally it takes quite a while to bake and frost the cookies, and often even longer when I let the boys help. This time, I was amazed at how quickly all the cookies were finished with all three of them helping. It was great! (and the cookies were so yummy!)
After we finished the cookies and cleaned up, I asked Bitty if he wanted Santa to come to our house. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. I had to ask a couple more times before he answered with a soft, almost whispered but emphatic "No!" He's not really into Santa (obviously) and I guess the idea of a bearded stranger coming into our house was not so appealing to him. I had to actually promise to tell Santa to skip our house; then he relaxed and went back to his game.
Lucky for us, Bearhug and Cuddlebug aren't into Santa either so they didn't mind my telling Bitty that we'd ask him not to come. Cuddlebug informed me earlier in the day, "I don't believe in Santa, Mom, I believe in St. Nick." As in, St. Nicholas from history.
Letting the boys stay up to help with cookies also helped them get a little more tired so it was easier to get them into bed :). Everyone was excited for Christmas morning, and Bitty reminded us for at least the 1000th time "you ca' open you pwesents on Sa'urday December 25!"
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