The Terrible Catsafterme

This Christmas celebration marked a distinct departure from events of the past dozen years or so in many ways. I had hosted Christmas Eve (which is the major family Christmas gathering) every since 1995 (with the exception of one year), but this year the honors went to Denise and Aaron. This was mostly because Denise had been ordered by her doctor not to travel since it was so close to time for the new baby to come. And because Mom was going to be staying in Columbus until Friday, this also was a deciding factor that we would not get together with her family on Christmas Day, but two days later on Saturday the 27th. In addition, this was the first year in many that Briana did not attend the celebration. This was because she was in Florida with Billy and Jill for the holiday. And finally, this also represents the only year that someone gave a gift that I had given them back to me…right on the spot!

For some reason, I just wasn’t ready for this Christmas to come and go. I had completed my shopping mostly beforehand, picking up the last of the gifts one day before Christmas Eve, which fell on Wednesday this year. These last three gifts were slipped into gift bags as my friend Heidi had already assisted me over the previous weekend with all gifts that merited wrapping paper.

Along with the last gifts, I picked up the Hawaiian bread and spinach dip on Tuesday…for the third time. The first batch I had picked up the week before and decided that I didn’t want to serve the bread a full week later, so we decided to go ahead and eat the bread and dip with our pizza when I had Mom & Bob and Diana & Tom over on Friday, December 19, for a DVD screening of A Christmas Story and Rich Little’s A Christmas Carol. This was a nice way for us all to relax a bit after the hustle and bustle of the holiday preparations.

I didn’t do a lot the weekend before Christmas other than that. I just worked on the website, tinkered around watching The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and procrastinating in getting out to the toy store to get Adam’s last gift. Heidi came by Saturday evening for the wrap party and Sunday was absolutely freezing, so I didn’t go to Toys R’ Us until Monday the 22nd.

On Tuesday, Carl bought pizza for our department at work, which made up for the lack of Christmas celebration from the previous week. Unlike previous years in which we had extravagant dinners and/or parties, this year we only had a catered breakfast and lunch – for which we each had to pay $25. I bit my tongue mostly. It bled, but I bit it.

On Christmas Eve itself, my boss John sent us home just after noon. It’s always mosty quiet on the day before Christmas, but I did have the seemingly-obligatory front-end emergency as I drove home when the Western Hills store called me to report that they had lost half of their register…but thankfully only temporarily. There was absolutely no snow and it was warming up at this point, but it was pouring down rain as I drove home. And incidentally, my driver’s side washer blade stopped working then as well. Merry freakin’ Christmas right?

I got home around 1:30pm, had a light lunch, watched some Ozzie & Harriet, chatted with my friend Jimmy on the phone, threw the last gifts in bags, packed my overnight gear, loaded up the car, and then headed out around 3:30. The rain has somewhat abated so it didn’t take quite 90 mintues to get to Denise’s house in Westerville. Even though I had left a little later than planned, I was the first one to arrive, only to find that Adam was still napping.

Adam got up first and gave me his sleepy greeting, and then the others began to roll in. Dad, Bill & Dottie, and Arline first, then Mom & Bob and Grandpa Murphy almost immediately following. Ashleigh had unfortunately had to work until 6pm at Best Buy, so she didn’t get there until about 7:30. I would have waited for her but not for the fact that she had to leave early the next morning to go to her Mom’s family parties. I didn’t have anything else to do on Christmas Day, so I wanted to stick around at Denise’s place into the afternoon. Grandpa also tried to talk me into leaving earlier so he could go to another party, but my mind had been made up to stay for a while.

 Adam and his new remote control firetruck. “That’s funny”

 Adam puts on his Christmas cute smile

 Mom, Bob, me, a bunch of nuts

 I tried to get a nice shot of Adam and his Mommy, but this one was thwarted by Adam’s rubber fingers

 This one was thwarted by a peanut distraction

 This one was okay although Adam is giving his ‘confused George Bush’ pose

This one, however, I am submitting to the Pulitzer Prize nomination committee for photo journalism

We dug right into the massive array of food within the first hour. Dottie had brought along some dessert cookies (including my favorite pecan tarts), a carrot dish, and cranberry jello, Mom brought the oriental salad, pumpkin pie, and key lime cake, Aaron had whipped up some potato concoction, I brought the spinach dip and bread, and of course we had our main course turkey (brought by Mom) and ham (brought by Dad). No sandwiches though – which was also different than the usual Christmas Eve fare.

 Aaron says the turkey and ham are almost ready

 Arline, Dottie, Bill, Bob, Mom, Dad, me, and Grandpa sit down to a nice Christmas meal

 Mom glows in the presence of Adam

Dottie and Bill aka Bill and Dottie

Ashleigh came along at 7:30pm and was a little grumpy from working all day and then embarking on the windy drive, but it wasn’t long before she had some food and cheered up. It helps to cheer her up to see Adam playing with his new toys and remote control car and saying “that’s funny!” about almost anything and everything. He is now talking up a storm, and although it is a bit tough to understand him, he does very well at putting sentences together.

Within fifteen minutes, we were ready to start tearing into the gifts. It was fast and furious, but mostly all eyes were on Adam who did a great job of passing them out to the appropriate people. He gave Arline the first gift and then said “what is it, Arline?” It didn’t take long before he got a bit too excited and started just dropping the gifts at people’s feet. When it was time to open his gifts we asked him if he wanted us to help, to which he’d say “okay.”

 “What is it Arline?” – Hopefully not a candle

 Adam sees if Mom needs any assistance with her gift

 A couple o’ mugs, three to be exact

 Adam makes sure that his Grandpa can handle opening his gift

 Adam takes interest in Grandpa’s bag of cookies

 Finally…Adam’s turn to gingerly open up his gifts, one small paper scrap at a time

 Denise shows off Adam’s new Disney t-shirt while he heads back for more. You can always tell from your Christmas gifts where Mom has just recently been traveling.

 Yaht and her new Dare phone

 Grandpa and his traditional bow-head

 Adam opens up his massive truck from me

Aaron gives Adam his first music lesson: how to turn it off 

 Mom and her array of gift cards and cash…a-shopping she will go!

I got Adam a Max and Ruby Christmas DVD, Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas DVD (which was sort-of for Denise too), a big-ass yellow dumptruck, and $20 for his savings. My poem on his card said “Here is some moolah to spend as you choose / On wagons or gecko’s or even Blues Clues / But if Mommy finds it, she will say “Oh boy” / “This goes in the bank, not toward a toy!'” Just so poetic, I am. Ashleigh got him a train and tracks that were stored inside a plastic bag. Adam referred to it as a ‘choo-choo train in a bag.’

Denise got from me Monk Season 6 on DVD, Prince Caspian on DVD, and Oceans Thirteen on DVD. Aaron got The Simpsons season 5. Mom got a sweater, perfume, and $50 in Red Lobster gift cards to share with Bob. Bob got a hoodie sweatshirt. Dad got That Lucky Old Sun by Brian Wilson on CD, a Howdy Doody DVD collection, the Police Squad series DVD, and the Ozzie and Harriet Christmas collection DVD. I got Ashleigh the new Dare phone that she wanted along with a protective skin for it (actually from the toaster oven). Bill and Dottie got a box of Esther Price. Grandpa got some chocolate candy. And finally, Arline got a vanilla scented candle. She didn’t know what this was and when she found out, she gave it back and told me that she “didn’t burn candles.”

As for me, well as you might guess I like to get DVDs even more than I like to give them. From Mom, I got The Last Picture Show, Babe, Sweet Land, a Disney World mug and t-shirt, and a set of Bengals cornhole bags. From Dad, I got Great Balls of Fire, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Help!, The Muppet Show Season 2, and $40. From ‘Adam and the Gang,’ I got Cars, The Droopy Collection, the Fletch collection, and a shirt. Ashleigh got me a great pair of headphones. And Bill and Dottie gave me a $25 gift card to the Olive Garden. Arline gave me the candle back. A most excellent bounty of loot I must say.

 The third annual now-tradtional family Christmas pose

My baby and me

As always, it was all over much too quickly. Since they had a rather long drive, Dad and the Bill/Dottie/Arline posse were out of there before 8:30pm. Another fabulous Christmas Eve had come and gone. Everyone else present spent the night. Since Ashleigh had driven, I decided to be extra nice and Christmas-spirited and let her have the big couch while I slept on the loveseat. I drifted off to Brian Wilson’s That Lucky Old Sun on my iPod, using my brand new headphones. It was a rather uncomfortable night of sleep, but I did doze. And Ashleigh claims that I snored.

Next up: Christmas Day

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 6:53 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Christmas, Family Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.