Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration on her blog. I appreciate this invitation to look for the positives in my week.

It’s been a busy week here. Lots of cooking, baking, wrapping, unwrapping, reading, and plenty of challenging behaviors. There’s something about a holiday that brings out all the anxiety and stress in traumatized kids. The days leading up to Christmas were very difficult, the days after Christmas have been difficult, but you know what? Christmas Day was PERFECT. It was this little oasis of calm, happy fun.

Frances climbed the tree.

My older son loved his present from Santa. Or, as we say in our house, “Santa” with air quotes.

The Christmas Day bane of all parents everywhere: putting together the toys.

I only cared about the books.

My mom was super excited about her crazy wrapping job on this book:

When I opened the weirdly wrapped package, I found this title inside (it’s such an apt description of my life!):

My mom is so happy to get a book about dying!

Roxy mostly conked out on the couch.

My son discovered that his new underwear promises “odor control.” Turns out that those are the funniest two words you can say to a middle-schooler when you’re talking about underwear.Roxy decided she could wake up long enough to help Grandpa open his food present.

Probably my favorite photo of the day.

My younger son stopped opening presents because he wanted to start reading his new Rick Riordan graphic novels.We tried to take family photos. Turns out it is IMPOSSIBLE to get 4 people all looking at the SAME camera AND not making WEIRD faces. At least when one of those 4 is a middle schooler.

Also, I now have photographic proof that I have to give up the delusion that I am still taller than my son. I feel taller on the inside. Does that count?

And a bonus cat photo: my older son got a dartboard for Christmas, and it turns out that Frances is REALLY interested in darts. So she has to go to kitty jail (i.e., the dog crate) when darts are being played. She finds it very perplexing.