As you were warned...

The story of the rest of my Christmas time off. RUN! RUN AWAY!

There now. As I mentioned yesterday, the rest of my time this past week was just as busy as the first day, but without as much heavy lifting. Sunday was church, lunch with Ashley's other set of grandparents and exchanging gifts with them (and bringing home a rather large cast resin angel for the yard), then back to church (and I was finally able to lead singing for once without coughing or loosing my place). Monday, up early (of course), did stuff all day and went to visit and exchange gifts with some of Ashley's other relatives and her other grandparents AGAIN (less said, the better), Tuesday was spent preparing the house for Santa Claus.

This involved convincing several small children to take their toys from the den and up to their room so Santa would not trip and sue us. This took all day. "Kids, get to work! Santa..." "Yes, Daddy, we know. We don't want Santa to fall and kill himself in our den floor." I did my final gift wrapping for Reba and got all of the kids to sign her Christmas cards, we had supper and gifts with Reba's mom and dad, which is where the earthworm part of the saga comes in. I took Catherine to the van to leave, and we saw a long redworm wriggling across the sidewalk. She watched it intently for a long time (it takes forever to get away from some places, you know) and talked to Mr. Earthworm about birds and Santa. As everyone finally got to the door, Cat screamed back (several times) that she had found an earthworm. Each kid came by and looked at it and got in, except for Rebecca who came running to the van oblivious to the continued Tiny Girl Earthworm Commentary. "Hey, SLOW DOWN! STOP RUn..." Right down on top of it. Which freaked Rebecca out and she started crying about killing Catherine's Mr. Earthworm. (ahhh, holidays!) She finally calmed down when she saw Mr. Earthworm wriggling again. (I dared not tell her he was in agony, only that he was just looking for the grass. It seemed to help.)

Got back home and bundled the kids all off to bed to await the arrival of the guy who keeps trying to send me to the poor house every year. Reba and I decided we better watch a movie for a couple of hours to make sure they were all truly asleep, so we popped in Ocean's 11. We hadn't seen this one before--good fun, lots of cool scenery, suspenseful, deft comedy. We liked it. And by the time it was over, the kids WERE asleep. And I just about was.

But, it was time for digging the hidden treasures out from our closet and sneaking them downstairs. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but for some reason, Reba was in full chatter mode and then Rebecca got out of bed and was stumbling around upstairs and I had to go get her back in the bed. "Why's Mama downstairs? What's going on?" "Nothing, sugar, she's just checking to see if Santa's come yet." "Why?" "Look, just go back to sleep and don't get up or he ain't EVER gonna get here!" "Okay."

Went back and finished arranging stuff and messing up a plate with a piece of cake and a glass with some milk, which was artfully left on the table for inspection by the crew in the morning. The final piece was the annual Toilet Papering of the Stair Landing. This is done to foil our oldest child, who since she was only seven or eight has been a real [expletive deleted--and boy is it a good one] about trying to sneak in and find out what everyone got before anyone else got up. The tissue is fragile enough to immediately indicate a breach of security, yet easily cleaned up and reused. And it drives Oldest batty. The other kids think it's great fun to tear it down, but she has taken to looking at it as a sign that we don't trust her. Which we don't, of course. The reasons for which will become apparent shortly.

I finish the papering, and Reba and I hit the bed exhausted as usual. I sleep the sleep of the dead until suddenly I hear the unmistakeable chatter of children. For a moment I can't think, then my eyes slam open. Our room is dark, it's dark outside, and yet there is light in the hallway. I look at the clock--3:15 a.-stinking-m. Immediate action--up out of bed in a flash, stormed down the hall to see Oldest lounging in her bed reading from a stack of books strewn about and Middle Girl sitting at the foot of the bed with her Gameboy, happily oblivious. It seems that Rebecca had gone to the bathroom (again) a short time earlier before I was awakened, noticed that Ashley's light was on and became engaged with her in the attempt to see when Santa arrives. "Yeah, Ashley said she had been up since 1!" Anger, hissed threats of harm and mayhem, apoplexy, books put away, game turned off, everyone back in bed with Dad's not too subtle suggestion that this little episode will never EVER be repeated upon pain of permanent placement on the naughtly list. Had the intended effect on Middle Girl--Oldest just kept shooting Middle Girl dirty looks as if it were her fault. ::sigh::

Three hours later, the kids are all up again, ready to go, except for Ashley who is still playing the sullen victim card (ahhh, the holidays!) but she did manage to grace us with her presence as we all saw what Santa brought. This year Catherine was very concerned about making sure Santa had eaten, and was delighted to see he had fixed himself some cake and milk and had gotten some raisins for Rudolph. The kids got most of what they had asked for (which wasn't a lot--they really aren't the greedy sorts, thankfully)--the big things were for Jonathan a guitar, Catherine a Barbie cash register, Rebecca a Password Journal (easily defeated by mere prying, by the way), and Ashley her own Gameboy.

I did manage to get Reba something other than a washing machine--she has been angling for a new electric blanket for years and I finally got her one, which she was tickled about. She got me the Band of Brothers tape set, which I watched in its entirety over the next couple of days. What an incredible production! I think it's the best World War II feature ever made. Just incredible. She also got me something that I think I will treasure for a long time.

As I have mentioned before, she does not know that I write this silly blog, nor does anyone else in my immediate family or my circle of physical acquaintances. I've just never felt the need to tell anyone, I guess because they would rightly think it's pretty dumb. Yet, in a bit of odd synchony, Reba gave me a small, pocket-sized antique book from 1901--we both like antiques, and antique books especially, but this one was interesting in that it was a book on writing--a concise little styleguide with spelling and grammar rules and forms of address that she found at a small decorating shop in town. It has a wonderful section on composition--basically, write what you know. Write with economy. Write to be understood. A more wonderful gift she could not have given me.

Thursday and Friday Reba had to go back to work, so those two days were spent playing with the kids' toys and trying to find sufficient batteries to make sure everything squeaked and peeped and blipped properly, and part of Friday was spent chasing around town picking up our paychecks and going to the bank and going for Rebecca's annual physical. Strep throat! (ahhh, holidays!)

Saturday, we finally did Christmas with my mom and sister, which thankfully did not require me to kill any house wrens. Nice dinner, after which the kids suddenly decided to let the various symptoms of cabin fever loose upon us all, requiring that Dad call a halt to the whole thing and haul them all out to the van and go home.

Sunday rolled back around and I spent morning and afternoon redoing the teacher roll for the millionth time. Grr. And then finally, made it back here.

The entire time I was off was spent away from the television and the computer--no blogging, no e-mail (sorry for the late replies, folks), no Googlewhacking, not even any Lileks--just a constant whirl of life. The last two days I have felt like Rip Van Winkle when I cruise back by and see my old virtual friends and what all they did while I was "gone." But, it sure will be nice when it comes around again. Like, say, tomorrow! Yep, tomorrow will be spent away from the computer, too, as my family and I drag a new year into being. I am not one for resolutions every year, but I think mine will be to start using "twenty." I am kinda tired of "two thousand." and I think it's high time we all started saying "twenty-o-three" instead of "two thousand and three."

So there.
posted by Terry at 11:12:00 AM