Santa comes even if you don't have home made cookies and believe it or not, even if you pee on him.

There is a scientific formula that shows a direct correlation between how fancy your holiday cookies are, how many kids you have, and how many hours you spent at work during the week leading up to Christmas.

I don't have time for scientific formulas that show direct correlations between anything. So I will just say when you have 3 kids and you work close to 60 hours in the week before Christmas Santa doesn't get his usual homemade cookies. He gets Oreos. If he's lucky he gets holiday Oreos with red middles and Christmas pictures on the cookie part.

When I first got married I spent countless hours making sugar cookies from scratch and carefully decorating each one to look like a perfect little star, angel, or Christmas tree. I also made homemade fudge, peanut brittle, pralines and many other varieties of cookies. Everyone got a tin filled with goodies.

After Taylor was born I continued the tradition. Once I went back to work it still continued but with a few less varieties. I started to work more hours and the cookies were not as carefully decorated. Maybe a few more were the cookies that come in a tube from the supermarket.

After Cameron was born the cookies were sometimes not decorated at all. Or I would just give the kids the frosting (now store bought) and sprinkles and let them go at it.

Now we have 3 little darlings and we both work full time or more. This year I bought some Oreos, just in case, and some sugar cookie dough in a tube. The plan was that after I got home from work on Christmas Eve at close to midnight I would bake those sugar cookies and carefully arrange them on a dish for Santa.

Except I had to finish (start) wrapping gifts and clean the house and make sure the turkey was defrosted, find the Christmas books, and clean poop, etc. Then I realized I had forgotten to buy frosting. The stores are closed. Do I feel like making homemade frosting? Do I even remember how? NO. So those Oreos, just in case, were a good idea.

I still haven't baked the sugar cookies in a tube or even gone to get frosting. Yet, the world continues to turn. Christmas still happened. We all survived and it was still a pretty darn good day. Funny how that happens.

This same phenomenon occurs with other aspects of life such as fancy Birthday parties, the number of pictures taken of each child, the accuracy of baby books, and the neatness level of your house (or how close your residence is to being condemned).

Any way, the point is Santa still came and ate those cookies. He still left gifts even though Sister peed on him when she went to visit. Santa is apparently a lot like Moms. Loves the kids no matter what they do, how much time the take up, or how messy they are. Santa is a very patient person who likes Oreos, just like me.

Here are some elves that may look familiar: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1119469490

Here is the face Santa makes when you pee on his lap:


This is why it is not good for a toddler to have to wait almost 2 hours in line to see Santa. Saggy, old diapers drip when kids get a little excited.