That’s
what Caleb said when he arrived at our house the other day. He was all set for Christmas, and since we
were opening presents the next day, that made the day they got here Christmas
Eve II. And I’m not sure if it has
dawned on his yet, but they are heading to their other grandparents’ house from
here later this morning, so I guess that makes this Christmas Eve III. Sounds like a major movie trilogy.
We
started out our Christmas together as we usually do. Well, sort of. We had to wait for Uncle Kel to get off his
mail route and for Aunt April to get off work at the Emergency Room. But by near seven o’clock everybody was
either here, or arrival was imminent.
Our first order of business is to get photos of all the grandkids under
the tree. That, as you might imagine, is
no mean task with ten of them ranging in age between fourteen and one. I haven’t seen any of the photos yet, and I
wasn’t involved in taking them, because I was next up to get my picture as
Santa with all of them. Once all that
was complete, the kids told the Christmas story. I helped by asking questions along the way,
but they did a pretty good job. I
especially enjoyed Noa’s background singing.
The
actual gift opening time was kind of chaotic, even though we do our best to
control it. Each family presents the
gifts they have for the other families. Finally
Nani and DadDad hand out their gifts to everyone. I think this year there was enough activity
that no one got overly bored. I know I
had to get out of the Santa suit pretty quickly because I was burning up. One of my gifts was an impact drill I have
been wanting. But the best thing about
it was that it had all of the kids’ signatures on the card. I’ll hang onto that one for when they become
famous. The gift that most surprised
Chris was the spotlight she opened from Nathan and April and Cailyn. Who gets a spotlight for Christmas? She was trying to figure uses for it like,
brighten up the back yard or shine into the new neighbor’s house, if anyone
ever moves in there. But the real
surprise came when they took her outside.
Seems they had another use in mind.
They had made one of those outdoor cutout figures of a Precious Moments-looking
Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. The
spotlight was to illuminate the figure.
Great surprise. Couldn’t enjoy it
for long, though. It was just too cold
out there.
I ended
up the evening with the beginnings of what I feared might become a case of the
dreaded man-flu. I maintained the
premise that it was just a cold, however.
Once you admit to having the man flu, there are certain protocols that
have to be followed. As it was, I just
went to bed earlier than everybody else and stayed away from the little
guys. Josh and Christi leave this
morning, so maybe when they are gone I can kick it into man-flu gear. Hmm.
Cailyn is supposed to stay with us tonight. Maybe I can get her to wait on me hand and
foot …
Psalms
19:8 says, “The precepts of the Lord are
right, giving joy to the heart. The
commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.”
Father,
thank you for a great family Christmas.
It would sure be nice to be over this gunk by Sunday. Amen.
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