Christmas: the wrap up

I need to post this here so it doesn't get lost from our family lore:

Ethan woke up on Christmas morning at 2:30 AM. Ready to open his loot. He could not go back to sleep. He would not listen to sweet reason, but instead cried...and cried...and cried. It was sad, but he had to wait. We told him that he couldn't open presents without his sisters, or until it was more morning than night.

5:40, we told him. "Go back to sleep for three hours."

He cried in his room for a little while, lying on his bed staring at the clock. 3:11... 3:12... 3:13... Andrew moved into our room to sleep on the floor, because Ethan was keeping him awake. I went into Ethan's room where I tried to calm him down for a while. Finally I gave up and unplugged his alarm clock so he couldn't watch the minutes pass. This actually made the situation worse, so I plugged the clock back in and set the alarm. "Now you can sleep," I said, "and rest knowing that the clock will wake you up when it's time." Brilliant.

I left his room and went back to bed. Ethan, anxious as ever, moved to the top of the stairs, where he sat and stared at the glorious presents below for ONE HOUR before Ginger told him to stop and go to sleep.

He tried, oh how he tried. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he finally fell asleep at 5:30 AM.

Minutes later, Andrew woke everyone up and announced that Christmas had arrived. We had agreed to 5:40, after all. Ethan jumped out of bed, as if fully rested and ready to go.

Emma, oblivious to the night's commotion, could be heard asking from her room, "Today is Christmas?"