Christmas - Part 1

Christmas is (almost) over. I’m always astounded at how long it takes to prepare the meal and clean up after it, but how little time it actually takes to consume. I seriously thought I would be washing dishes all afternoon. And, my grandmother insists on having this tub in the sink and doing the dishes in there. I’ve tried to take it out and wash dishes like a normal person (or at least a normal person who doesn’t own a dishwasher), but she gets all bent out of shape when I do it. So, when the water starts getting cold, it’s not as simple as pulling out the drain plug, you have to lift up this outrageously heavy tub and tilt it just right so that you don’t spill cold dirty water all over the countertop. And, really? We need to have the dish to cook it in, the dish to serve it in, and then the dish to store it in? Really? Three dishes for green peas that nobody but I ate anyway? That seems excessive. Not to mention washing the silver and the fancy dishes before and after the meal. I’m a simple girl. Give me red plastic plates and flatware any day! But, my aunt points out that we don’t know how many more years Granny will be able to serve dinner, so we need to just suck it up and do it the way she wants. Um? Thanks Anne! Way to bring down Christmas.

And…I just realized I wrote a whole paragraph about washing dishes. That’s exciting stuff! Moving on…

I was supposed to head to The Big D on Tuesday night, but Daddy told me to wait until Wednesday morning and get a good night’s sleep. Happy to do it! I got to Daddy and Linda’s house around 1pm on Christmas Eve, and for the first Christmas Eve that I remember Daddy didn’t have to drag me around town on 50,000 last minute errands. We had absolutely nothing to do except sit around the house and sneak pieces of ham! When we were growing up, Sissy and I would be sitting at Granny Dink’s window watching for his car on Christmas Eve. He would get there and bring in tons of plastic bags with our presents in them. He would pause to kiss us hello, then he’d lock himself in Granny Dink’s bedroom for at least an hour while he wrapped everything. Even up until last year, we were wrapping presents for Linda, among other things. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wrapped my own gifts from him. Not this year! I actually played on the internet for a while Christmas Eve because there was nothing left to do.

My step-sister and her family came by before going to church on Christmas Eve and sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to us like they were real carolers. My nephew Hunter was kind of bashful and was hiding his face. My nephew Zachary was smiling from ear to ear, and staring at me the whole time. The boys and I tracked Santa on the NORAD website while they were there. I showed them the movies that different countries had made of when Santa visited them. Zachary said he saw Santa waving at him in the Paris video. Also, Hunter, who has a crush on Taylor Swift, informed me that I had the wrong title of her song. It’s not Romeo and Juliet, it’s Love Story. Take that, Aunt Mel!

The next morning I went over to my sister’s house to see what Santa had brought my nieces Alex and Brianna. They both got a new bike, they got a big indoors playhouse to share, and a bunch of smaller stuff. Alex got a “rudio” A what? I asked. “A rudio! A rudio!” What is a rudio? I asked. “You know what a rudio is!” I hated to admit I really did not know what a rudio was. Turns out a rudio is actually a radio, and it plays the Camp Rock and Jonas Brothers cds she got too. Brianna’s hair looked funny and when I asked why, Cori said she had walked into the living room the other day and there were chunks of golden hair on the floor lying beside a pair of scissors. Brianna gave herself a little shag haircut. Isn’t that nice?

Then it was over to my Granny’s house to do all of that pre-dinner washing up . It was about 70 degrees outside and about 125 degrees inside. Anne and I opened all of the windows, which got all under Granny’s skin. We plan for this. We all come to Christmas layered in clothing because we know it’s going to feel like a boiler room in the house, and we can peel off clothes as needed. Being 70 degrees anyway, we could only layer so much this year, so we really had nothing to take off. Granny stood in the middle of the living room floor and proclaimed: It is December! What does that mean, we all asked. She said, It means it’s supposed to be warm inside because it’s cold outside. Well, one, it wasn’t cold outside; and two, it’s not supposed to be so warm we would be uncomfortable in tank tops and shorts, really. Other than the heat issue, which is nothing new, Christmas day was nice and relatively drama free. And, I didn’t even spill a whole bowl of banana pudding before anyone could eat it this year!! So, yay for me!

I go back to The Big D for Christmas, part 2 next weekend when my step-brother and his family come to town. Then Christmas 2008 will be officially over, and 2009 can begin.