Christmas

A little late on this. Christmas was a lot of fun for our family. Ang made some great homemade candy, as she always does, with the family members sneaking much of it before we could finally get it out to the intended recipients.

Leading up to Christmas Day, we kept up a tradition of reading and telling Christmas stories that stress the importance of sharing, service and why we really celebrate Christmas (and it's not to help Toys R Us hit their annual projection). We're so grateful to Aunt Ferry for her diligently sending her annual package of Christmas poems, stories, and anecdotes. Ang has bound them in a three ring binder over the years and it is now bursting at the seams. Those stories are much of what we read and relate during these nights as a family.

On Christmas morning, the kids found that Santa had made it to our house. Rhett was up early--and I mean really early (just how early is still being debated [long story]). Finally, we agreed that it was time to get up at 6am, and let him go in and first wake up Soleil, and then Jesse. Soleil was a little hard to rouse, and didn't seem to know which way was up, but she got her bearings quickly when Rhett reminded her that it was Christmas. Then they both went in and woke up Jesse. Now, one needs to understand that handling Jesse can, at times, being like handling nitroglycerin. You do it gently and you take your time. Neither of these things was done in waking him up, and he woke up like a hibernating grizzly who had been disturbed. The first words out of his mouth were, "Hey, what's the big idea!" It took him about two seconds to realize what the "big idea" was, however, and he did a complete 180, jumping from his bed and clearing a path to the stairs for himself by bulldozing the rest of us aside.

Santa had left Rhett the drum set that he wanted ("crazy Santa"), Jesse an Indiana Jones themed lego set, and Soleil a life-sized (or better put, "her" sized) ballerina doll she can dance with because she loves to dance and sing, along with a stuffed tiger she'd been wanting. She calls the tiger her "weapon." What we finally realized she meant was "webkin." For a while there I thought she intended to sic it on people. There were many other nice gifts from friends and family and we felt very grateful and blessed.