[Ralphie is visiting Santa at the department store, only he can't remember what he wanted]
Santa Claus: How about a nice football?
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Football? Football? What's a football? With unconscious will my voice squeaked out 'football'.
Santa Claus: Okay, get him out of here.
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] A football? Oh no, what was I doing? Wake up, Stupid! Wake up!
Ralphie : [Ralphie is shoved down the slide, but he stops himself and climbs back up] No! No! I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
At almost 40 years old, Santa finally decided Jeff was old enough to get the Red Rider rifle he always wanted. However, for those of you who know how prone he is to eye injuries, you would understand my concern for him shooting his eye out. :-)
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve was a busy day. I spent the majority of my day in the kitchen. The morning was spent baking cookies for Santa with Rachel and Anna. The afternoon was spent preparing food for dinner and baking a cake, and then we decorated the cookies for Santa after dinner.
Several of our family members were with us this year: Harold and Gail (mother-in-law and father-in-law), Todd (brother-in-law) and his children Yuki (nephew) and Mary Grace (niece). Two children from our neighborhood spent the afternoon and evening with us; Paige & Riley.
Paige had just bought a baby ferret on Christmas Eve so she brought her over to visit with our ferrets. Meeko and Molly, our ferrets, enjoyed having the baby to play with. I had forgotten how small our ferrets were when we got them earlier this year. Paige's ferret was so tiny that she could curl up and sleep in the palm of my hand.
We had a wonderful dinner where we all ate more food than our stomachs could possibly hold and then we topped it off with the chocolate cake that I made in honor of Jesus' birthday.
After dinner, Paige, Riley, Mary Grace, Rachel and Anna decorated the cookies that we had baked earlier in the day.
After our guests left, I bathed the girls and Jeff read, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in front of a cozy fire. And, then it was time for the girls to turn in for the night. After Rachel & Anna were fast asleep, we were busy getting Christmas gifts in order.
One item that Anna asked for this year was Butterscotch the horse. There was one problem, it was not operating after Jeff assembled it and it was far too late at that point to exchange it as most all of the stores were closed. We fretted over this throughout the night as we were so worried Anna would be heartbroken about it being broken. It was the one thing she focused on and we were so worried she would be disappointed. We wrote a note from Santa explaining that Butterscotch was so happy to see her that he jumped out of Santa's sleigh and hurt himself and that Santa had arranged for her to exchange him at a local store since the North Pole was so far away.
Miraculously and thankfully, she accepted this. And, despite the fact that Butterscotch was not operational, she was still very happy on Christmas morning.
We had a wonderful Christmas morning and wish everyone else the same. It's hard to believe that Christmas day is here and that the gifts are unwrapped and the tree looks all bare again without the presents. But, the best gift of all is having one another and for that, I am greatful.
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis
No comments:
Post a Comment