It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Dammit

I fear the Christmas Excitement Bug has bitten the Llama-ettes good and hard.

First, I was awakened at four o'clock this morning by the sound of the eight year old giving a dramatic reading of Calvin & Hobbes. Then, just when I'd convinced her to lower the pitch of her delivery to a dull roar, the six year old got up and apparently started running laps in her room.

Of course, once up neither one of them went back to bed, thereby banishing my last two precious hours of sleep. And to cap it all off, they got into a furious shouting match over who had to clean up what in the playroom, repeatedly coming to me to inform on each other while I was trying to get dressed.

Daddy is not at his most genial went jerked from the dreamless and then subjected to squabbling. After about the third or fourth tale of woe, I stormed off to the basement and informed the gels in so many words that if they expected to ever live to see Christmas morning, they'd better get hold of themselves right now.

For once, my wrath seemed to have made an impression on them but I doubt how long it will hold. Say till about four o'clock tomorrow morning?

Bah humbug, indeed.