To those of you who have closed recently or can remember from your closing: How long did the actual closing take?
Both my husband and I, and the sellers have children in school on the day of closing. We asked for a closing in the morning but the seller's pushed for lunch time. I want to make sure we'll have enough time to return to get the kids from the bus. I'm already keeping my son out of school that day since we can't get him to school at the right time (PM 4 year old Kindergarten), I'd keep my daughter home but she's missed so much school to go to the orthodontist!
Starting Score: 631
The closing doesn't take long at all for a normal one. If it is cash, about 15 minutes. If you have a mortgage to sign off then allocate about 45 minutes to an hour for the entire closing. Since I'm a Realtor I have been to many, many hundreds of closings. All the issues are to be taken care of prior to the date of signing, the closing itself is short.
I have read stories where people have taken much longer, but that is the exception and not the rule.
Good luck today! Congratulations 
What Starting10 said. I closed in late Feb 2013 and it took about 45 mins. 15 mins of that waiting for the closer to get my documents together.
Great! Thanks for the info! I just had a friend close on a house this week (not using the same lender) and she took all 3 kids and it took her 2.5 hours so I was starting to worry the time wouldn't work out.
We tried to work it out so that neither us nor the seller would have to have kids with us but it didn't work out with 3 different school times. Luckily, it is just our 5 year old (who is much better to bring along than our 8 year old who has ADHD and is autistic) that will be at the closing. We don't know anyone in the area so we don't have a baby sitter. Our agent said to bring his Nintendo DS and she'll bring some things (she has 4 kids) and it'll be fine. Our son also went to all 6 houses we looked at while my daughter was at school and was very well behaved. It's the best we can do at this point!