'Twas the night before Christmas . . .

And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Except for my daughter.

About 3:30 in the morning - Christmas morning! - I awoke to the sound of Ellie screaming in her bed. I lay quietly for a while, listening to see if she would sort herself out or if she sounded like she was genuinely hurt or scared. After about fifteen minutes, she escalated from screaming to high-pitched shrieking, so I decided that the time had come for me to investigate. After all, what could she be shrieking about on the night before Christmas?

The moment I opened the door to her room, the screaming stopped. Wearily, I asked her, "Whatcha screaming about, kiddo?"

"Nothin'."

That was her story, and she stuck to it. Nothin'. She wasn't scared or hurt or cold or thirsty or having a nightmare. Nothin'.

Luckily for me, it was the one night of the year that I had the perfect answer to this: "If you keep screaming, you're going to scare away Santa and his eight tiny reindeer. Better lie down and get to sleep!"

Worked like a charm.