Christmas report
We had a delightful relaxing Christmas on Friday. Excitement was high beforehand, as one would hope, two out of three boys were up well before the sun. The other, smallest boy was angry when he finally emerged (at a little after six) that no one had woken him up; but of course we'd all waited for him! The stocking presents were first, then we had breakfast and walked the dogs before we moved on to the ones under the tree. Which were mostly for the boys. They each got some legos, some Pokemon card products that included codes for online play (essential of course these days), and new pocket knives and water bottles. Harvey's knife is the real thing, as befits a child of the advanced age of 11; Lijah's is much smaller, appropriate for someone inclined to wave it around going "shing shing!". It does have scissors, which is useful.
As wonderful as that all was, what the boys were really looking forward to was going to Grandma and Grandpa's! I think they would have gone without presents before giving up their Christmas day with my parents—and especially the traditional Christmas brunch of bagels, smoked salmon, and doughnuts. Also lots of chocolate. The only tradition we missed out on was the carols: even though we sort of quarantined for two weeks before Christmas (we still had to go to stores, boo) singing together still seemed a bit too risky. We did wear masks too when we weren't eating, which, while admittedly a small proportion of the total time, felt like better than nothing.
In her longest stretch out of bed since her surgery Leah came along in the morning and stayed until all the presents were open. Then I drove her home and gave the dogs another walk in the rain through the flooded woods before heading back to vegetate for another several hours. There were lego sets to build and Pokemon decks to try out, and we all tried our hardest to work up some kind of an appetite for dinner. And pie! It was so relaxing I even had energy to help clean up the 10,000 little lego bits on the floor when it was time to go. Certainly, there were lots of things this year that didn't live up to their promise... but Christmas, at least, did all right.