11:17 a.m. - December 27, 2006
Christmas 2006 - With A Side Of Dunderheadedness
Ah, Christmas�.
Let�s recap Christmas 2006 at the Smed household, shall we?
Family over for brunch? Check.
Kidlets overdoing the noisy toys? Check.
Husband and wife getting cranky whilst making Santa appear Christmas Eve night? Check.
Unbridled joy when the eldest daughter opens the big present? Check.
Laughter as youngest daughter starts to play with the old toys instead of opening the new ones? Check.
Gingerbread house now a FEMA-special lean-to? Check.
Good times seeing some close friends at a gathering? Check.
Smed landing in the doghouse for forgetting something important? Big time check, in a 24 point bold font.
Oh, it was definitely fun and busy these last few days.
Christmas Eve started with a bang, as Liz got up early to get the house ready for the onslaught of the relatives at noon. Sure, the house is a bit of a mess with the dining room and the utility room needing to get finished, but still there were things to get cleaned before company did come.
Oh, and yes, we did go to Sunday school and church as well, and it not only was Christmas Eve but it was communion as well. Oh, and yes, I was the liturgist, so I had to serve the communion � there was no leaving early here.
The day before, Katie helped Liz make a quiche and I did a lot of shopping, since I was the one going to whip up the breakfast � well, except for the quiche.
Things went rather smoothly after church. We got home before anyone arrived, and we had a chance to get everything ready and prepared for the brunch. I started frying the hash browns, browning the sausage, putting the bacon on the griddle, and scrambling the eggs.
Liz put the quiche in the oven, and after about five minutes I asked her when it would be ready.
�Oh, in 45 minutes or so.�
�Then why the heck am I rushing to get everything done.�
�Ummm��
It was fine, because Niece Nurse and her fam had to skedaddle early to go to their second engagement of the day. However, her husband was feeling very sick and couldn�t make it. Now, the sad thing is that I bought groceries knowing that he�d eat ANY leftovers we had.
But Hoosier Niece brought someone. Not her old boyfriend, but�.her ex-husband. He had to go away for a while, but now he�s back. And he�s changed. I think they�re going to get remarried. Well, if he�s changed and all that, cool, because my great niece Dru needs a father figure. He was really nice with the kids and played with them a lot, so, we shall see.
Dad was there, too. Mom wasn�t feeling well, but Dad was spry enough to chow down on all of the good stuff. I even made real coffee for him, instead of decaf.
So the cooking was done and it was time to feast. Well, except for Liz, who was waiting for the quiche. The rest of us had no such hang-ups, and we dug in to the breakfast bonanza. Kristin and Katie had a wide variety of food � and you know, I think Kristin tried something of everything. We did find out that she absolutely LOVES blueberries. She almost turned violet�ok maybe not that bad.
After the brunch, it was time for presents. Oh, wait, the quiche was finally done, I think. So Liz ate quiche while we opened presents. Or, the kids opened presents. And the presents we gave the adults. It seems that last year, we all agreed just to give presents to the kids. However, that memo was not officially circulated in triplicate with the required co-signers, so we went ahead and got presents for everyone. Ah, well. �Tis the season!
Katie�s big present was a talking Dora doll that soon became quite annoying, as you pressed a button and it taught you how to say things in French, Russian, Chinese and Swahili (though it didn�t say it was Swahili, it just said, �In Tanzania, hello is��)
Kristin�s big present was a toy vacuum cleaner that talks and rolls its eyes. It�s actually cool, and the voice is soft enough as to not be mega-annoying. Yet.
After a couple of hours, everyone left, and I could now concentrate on football and getting the various toys out of their boxes. You know, Fischer-Price uses about 29,589 twist tie thing deal bits when securing their toys, and it�s really really really annoying to spend an hour untwisting and untwisting just so your daughter can get her toy SUV out of the box.
Football was watched (and lamented, as the Colts�cough�cough�hack�choked), leftover turkey was served for dinner, and the kidlets were bathed and sent to bed.
And now�it�s anniversary time.
Well, first we chilled out to watch Best Year Ever with cheese and wine and crackers. Then, we watched It�s A Wonderful Life while making sure Santa came for everyone, and wrapping presents that we gave instead of Santa.
But then�anniversary time. However, Liz, still feeling the effects of the gunk and getting up way too early, was tired. So, she said, �Should we just exchange cards now??�
Abject fear and horror crept over my face.
I had planned to get the card when I was grocery shopping on the 23rd. But I had to be a Katie-wrangler and I forgot to write it on my list, so, I forgot.
I suddenly felt lower than low. The lowest ever, I think. There certainly was a capital �D� in Dumbass, and the �ASS� was bold as well.
However, I recovered, as we�re going to go have a date this weekend. A-woot!
Christmas Day, Santa came. When we got the kids downstairs, Katie knew exactly what to do, and ran right for the presents.
Kristin, however, didn�t quite get it, and started to play with her new vacuum cleaner and her existing toys before we guided her over to her new stuff.
The big present this year for Katie was an Easy Bake Oven.
She was SO excited.
We also got some Easy Bake Oven cookbooks, so we didn�t have to be stuck with the pasty blandness of the normal stuff you get from them. One book, in fact, was full of recipes from gourmet chefs adapted for use in an Easy Bake Oven. Yes, you too, can make quail in an Easy Bake Oven, if you were so inclined.
Yesterday, we had a function to go to. Some of my close friends came back for Christmas with their families, and we all gathered at one house and exchanged parenting and work stories. They all have older kids than we do � tweens mostly � and now I�m in mortal fear for my life in the next dozen years or so. (Kidding, they�re all just peachy keen kids, even though one of them has a �boyfriend� as much as you can have a boyfriend in 7th grade.)
So all in all, except for me winning dunderheaded idiot of the year, it was a good Christmas. Now, I just can�t wait for Chef Katie and her classic Easy Bake creations. Yum!
