Yes, we did celebrate Christmas—but with all the traveling and then the recovery, I haven’t had a chance to get around to posting any pictures from a very fun Christmas with my in-laws. But that’s changing today!
These are from our ward Christmas party:
Hayden saw that Santa was giving other children small bags of candy. So while we were in line, I asked Hayden what he was going to ask Santa for and he wisely chose “Nanee!”
Rebecca wasn’t too impressed with Santa.
But she’s Santa Baby!
Discuss 😀 .
I’ll be honest. I don’t particularly enjoy spending days slaving over a hot oven to prepare baked goods to show my neighbors which among them are my favorites. (Hi guys!) I personally would not be the slightest bit offended if we didn’t get any neighbor gifts.
But this week, I discovered the best neighbor gifts ever. I was all set to host my book club Thursday night—I’d read the book, cleaned the house, picked up refreshments (again, not spending the day mixing and baking), made cocoa (one homemade thing, plus milk was $1.85/gal!), warmed those not-even-semi-homemade cookies in the oven, set out the Little Debbies, fed the baby—and then we waited.
No one was early.
No one was right on time.
No one was five minutes late.
No one was ten minutes late.
No one was twenty minutes late.
At that point, we decided no one was coming—and we had more than a gallon of hot cocoa on the stove. And we had nothing to store it in, thanks to Ryan’s slightly overzealous cleaning, taking out the empty milk jug.
So we bundled up the kids, grabbed a tray of cookies and the pot of cocoa and headed to visit our neighbors. (This never happens in the winter, okay? It’s cold out there!) We spent a delightful couple of hours visiting with them, their older daughters taking turns holding a very placid Rebecca and their sons and youngest daughter playing with Hayden—and I even got to discuss the book club book!
We told them that would “count” for our neighbor gift and a better way of expressing how much we really enjoy having them as neighbors I can’t imagine. Thanks for having us, especially on such short notice!
[We are the proud owners of one of those notebooks of Christmas stories to be read each day of December leading up to Christmas—and this year we remembered to pull it out. After tonight’s scripture from Isaiah impromptu concert from Messiah, Ryan began tonight’s story. And it was on this wise. . . .]
We never had money to spend on each other, but we had caught early in our lives a sort of contusion [the story says contagion, but I think this misreading is where we got off track] from our mother. She loved to give, and her anticipation of the joy that a just-right gift would bring to someone infected the whole household. We were swept up in breathless waiting to see how others would like what we had to give.
Secrecy ruled—open, exaggerated secrecy, as we made and hid our gifts. The only one whose hiding places we discovered [sic] was my grandmother’s. Her gifts seemed to appear by magic on Christmas morning and were always more expensive than they should have been. She was a drug dealer. She had a plot of fifty marijuana plants out back—
[Ryan had to stop for several minutes while I sputtered, choked and, yes, cried with laughter. We then discussed whether or not those were the real printed words.]
That Christmas I was glowing because Mother had been so happy with the parchment lampshade I’d made in the fourth grade. Father had raved over the clay jewelry case I had molded and baked for him. (“Baked?” Grandma said.) Gill and Emma Lou had been pleased with the figures I’d whittled out of clothespins [Mother less so, I’m sure], and Homer had like the scout pin I’d bargained for with my flint. Then Grandma started to pass out her presents.
Mine was heavy and square. It’s a brick of cocaine!
“You’ll have to cut and deal it yourself, dear. I’m getting too old for that kind of thing.”
I’d been in the hospital with an overdose that year and then on crutches after one of Grandma’s rivals broke my leg with a baseball bat. And I’d wondered how it would be to have an erector set to build with. Grandma had a knack at reading boys’ minds and I was sure that’s what it was. But it wasn’t. It was a pair of boots, brown tangy-smelling leather boots. I turned them upside down and out tumbled—
[The End]
My, how time flies!
Easter 2006
Easter 2007
My baby’s not a baby anymore…
This post is part of Wordless Wednesday.