2010 Christmas Recap...
12/27/2010
I suppose I can make this official now, Christmas 2010 is over, and it was “The Best Christmas Ever!”
Oops! Allow me to make one slight clarification to the statement above: the first half of Christmas 2010 is over; the second half begins this coming Saturday when we visit the other half of our immediate family. This weekend we will head to Richmond, VA for phase two of the Holidays and some fun with a belated Christmas and two birthdays beginning on New Year’s Day.
Christmas Day 2010 began for us with a call from one of the grandsons at about 7am pleading for his grandmother and me to get our butts out of bed and over to his house so he and his brothers and sister could open presents. The kids’ mom wouldn’t allow them to open anything until we arrived, and we very much appreciated their restraint – though they weren’t too happy about it. It all worked out in the end.
As we watched them rip through box after box for about fifteen minutes after our arrival at their house, it was all over but the shouting. The kids were mostly joyful about their gifts, the younger two only disappointed when a box contained a gift of clothing. The Nancy and I get around all the complaining by just dropping a couple of bucks on them. Cash is a gift that keeps on giving, in my humble opinion. It is also a gift we senior citizens dump on kids so we don’t have to go to the mall and buy them something they don’t want, need or will use. After a breakfast of French toast and peanut butter fudge, we sat around enjoying the kids screaming at one another about whose turn it was to play a computer game. A few punches were thrown, some drama-laced tears ensued, followed by few expletives that leaked out of one little foul mouth (a middle schooler) just before by the sound of a mother’s smack on the butt. One kid stormed off to his room as the other was condemned to a chair, and just that quickly all was back to an orderly Christmas morning.
The great-grandparents arrived about noontime and a Holiday repast was enjoyed in the early afternoon, that followed by numerous complaints by yours truly of the amount of culinary delights stuffed within. I was miserable for the rest of the day, at the very least it was a couple of hours. Later that evening four of us took in the newly released “True Grit” remake. It was a nice way to end an exciting day, though I made myself miserable again with a bucket of popcorn.
All in all, in was a wonderful day, but it had to end, and it did on a good note. There is just nothing like being with family on a holiday for me. To me, it is what it is all about. And this weekend we get to do it all over again with a new set of relatives.
And that is all I have to say about that…