the night before Christmas

We went out to Pinawa for the weekend for a quiet Christmas with Shan’s folks. Shan’s mom had a stroke about 6 weeks ago and is still recovering from it. She seems fine – a bit more frail than normal – but gets tired quickly and often takes naps. The prognosis is good, and she is expected to make a full recovery, but it will take some time.
The drive out Friday night was slow as the snow was blowing but the traffic was light and we made it there without any mishaps. The kids were quite wound up and ended up opening their gifts on the Saturday. Shan had made the ham on Saturday and the turkey on Sunday and both were wonderful.

They are all home together today while I am at work so we’ll see how high the excitement levels will get. The kids aren’t ones for getting up early on Christmas Day though. Often, Shan and I will have to wake them by 9am to get the day started.
D3’s having a crisis of faith this year. About half of the kids in his class don’t believe in Santa Claus. He has asked for coal for his stocking – not that he feels that he has been bad but more to help prove Santa’s existence.

Shan doesn’t put out my gifts until the last moment. I’m usually very good about being about to guess my gifts by weight and package size. I remember our early years together. She had said that I could shake my gifts but then was appalled as I slowly tipped the box back and forth. This I had learned from science class where you have to determine what was in a sealed box by observing whether objects rolled or slid when the box was tipped in various ways. Since then, I’m not allowed to shake my gifts or even look too closely at them.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine. Happy holidays to the more secular of you. A happy Christmaka to those who understand it and a happy Festivus for the rest of us.