Christmas with the Herd

Happy Holidays!

So I've mentioned before that Master Chef and I have five kids between us (10, 8, 6, 4, 3.5) and a lot of the time when we go out as a family and pile in or out of the van, people seem to think it's like the clowns in a circus car--how many are in there? So you can imagine how chaotic we were expecting Christmas morning to be this year when all five of them were together.

Now to put this in perspective, they were so wired Christmas Eve that anyone who stopped by might have thought we made them snort powdered sugar. If three weren't tearing around the house like they were auditioning for Rudolph's Reindeer Games, then the other two were. And that was between them alternately blasting parts of the Polar Express from the TV, asking for the hundredth time when other people were coming over (because yes, apparently the seven of us wasn't enough we had to have another ten people over) and just trying to see who could be the loudest (every parent's favorite game, right?). 

So you can imagine that while we were excited to see the looks on their faces when they opened their presents, we were equally nervous that Christmas morning might go flying off the rails faster than they could toss aside boring old clothes so cleverly disguised in all that wrapping paper.

Turns out we couldn't have been more wrong. Those pumped-up, Santa-loving hellions of the night before were happy, sweet, appreciative and so excited for each other all we could do was smile. And be secretly grateful we have another 365 days to go before the chaos starts all over again.

How was your Christmas? Calm or chaotic? :)