My Best Christmas Ever
Sunny, 63/42, Fair to Fair. Well, the goat keeps hanging in there.... I don't know for how much longer though. She keeps getting thinner and thinner, but still seems to be eating and not in any pain. I've decided to let her have a go at it until she struggles getting to her feet, then I'll put her down. In other news, the farmhouse is getting electricity next week. We put in the meter base last weekend and I put in the application yesterday. Hopefully next Wednesday we'll have power and my tools won't be at the mercy of an underpowered generator.
It occurred to me looking at the last post y’all might take me for some sort of scrooge. That is not the case at all, because the best Christmas ever will probably happen in three more days, just like it did last year and the year before that…. Actually, the best Christmas ever doesn’t even take place on the 25th of December, but the night before. Oh sure, we open gifts on the 25th like most everyone else, but Christmas Eve is when the real festivities are. Well, let me describe it….
It begins before daybreak on the 24th with a hurried cup of coffee, a brief conversation with my wife, and me going off to find things to do around the farm. It is understood that we are on our own for whatever food we can scrounge up that day, and none will be from our kitchen because for the next nine hours my wife will be working herself into a frenzy cooking up sausage balls, cheese balls, shrimp, barbequed weenies, pigs and blankets, cookies, candies, and chips and cheese dips. From the moment we are told to skedaddle, she is left alone in her own private pleasure she calls cooking (its only a pleasure on this day mind you as we hear over and over the rest of the year….).
At about 4 o’clock we all gather back at the house and get ready for Children’s Mass at the church. During mass, we see the same play that has been repeated for hundreds of years, with the manger and baby Jesus. My wife and I remember when our kids were in those plays. In fact we look back at one year most fondly. It was the year both boys were given the coveted “post” part in the play. In order to play the post, the boys had to hold up two of the four posts that held a piece of fabric that represented the manger roof. Lots of pictures were taken that year and now I can show them proof whenever they do something stupid and I tell them they’re acting “as dumb as a post……..”
With all apologies to Father Charley, Father Allen, and our Lord, by the end of mass it gets really hard to concentrate. The food starts getting into my brain, and I don’t think I’ve ever really not tried to increase the closing hymn song speed. After we pile into the car, it seems to take forever to get home to the feast.
When we get home, friends and relatives start arriving. The food is brought out and everyone gets there own buffet style and won’t stop eating until the about 4 hours later. When the first wave is over, someone goes and gets a deck of cards that haven’t seen the light of day since last year’s Christmas and the fun begins.
I don’t know if it’s the card playing or what, but everyone seems to have a good time. The boys needle their great grandpa who’s almost eighty years older then them for rubbing his fingers or his chest trying to get someone to call up diamonds or hearts. This gets Pa-paw started on some stories and the card game stops while the boys listen to tales of runaway horses, playing hooky, or dipping a school girl’s pigtails into the inkwells. The same stories I heard as a kid except the horses are faster, the schoolmaster was meaner, and the girls were uglier….
Around 11 pm the Television get turned on, and some of us break away to watch the mass at the Vatican. The boys continue to play cards, but Pa-paw is about give out. Grandma and Grandpa are usually good for one more game of euchre though and after that, most everyone heads home.
I help Kathy clean up. It is the end to a magical time. Tonight, everyone was on equal footing. Kids were not nagged. Pa-paw was not being watched over like a hawk to make sure he was not getting confused. The food is great and the games that were played didn’t need a joystick and everyone from 8 to 93 could understand them. It is a 4 to 6 hour time of total peace in our family, before the surprises of life start up again for the next year.
So different from that Christmas twenty some years ago in a foreign land; so wonderful, and so worth the wait.
It occurred to me looking at the last post y’all might take me for some sort of scrooge. That is not the case at all, because the best Christmas ever will probably happen in three more days, just like it did last year and the year before that…. Actually, the best Christmas ever doesn’t even take place on the 25th of December, but the night before. Oh sure, we open gifts on the 25th like most everyone else, but Christmas Eve is when the real festivities are. Well, let me describe it….
It begins before daybreak on the 24th with a hurried cup of coffee, a brief conversation with my wife, and me going off to find things to do around the farm. It is understood that we are on our own for whatever food we can scrounge up that day, and none will be from our kitchen because for the next nine hours my wife will be working herself into a frenzy cooking up sausage balls, cheese balls, shrimp, barbequed weenies, pigs and blankets, cookies, candies, and chips and cheese dips. From the moment we are told to skedaddle, she is left alone in her own private pleasure she calls cooking (its only a pleasure on this day mind you as we hear over and over the rest of the year….).
At about 4 o’clock we all gather back at the house and get ready for Children’s Mass at the church. During mass, we see the same play that has been repeated for hundreds of years, with the manger and baby Jesus. My wife and I remember when our kids were in those plays. In fact we look back at one year most fondly. It was the year both boys were given the coveted “post” part in the play. In order to play the post, the boys had to hold up two of the four posts that held a piece of fabric that represented the manger roof. Lots of pictures were taken that year and now I can show them proof whenever they do something stupid and I tell them they’re acting “as dumb as a post……..”
With all apologies to Father Charley, Father Allen, and our Lord, by the end of mass it gets really hard to concentrate. The food starts getting into my brain, and I don’t think I’ve ever really not tried to increase the closing hymn song speed. After we pile into the car, it seems to take forever to get home to the feast.
When we get home, friends and relatives start arriving. The food is brought out and everyone gets there own buffet style and won’t stop eating until the about 4 hours later. When the first wave is over, someone goes and gets a deck of cards that haven’t seen the light of day since last year’s Christmas and the fun begins.
I don’t know if it’s the card playing or what, but everyone seems to have a good time. The boys needle their great grandpa who’s almost eighty years older then them for rubbing his fingers or his chest trying to get someone to call up diamonds or hearts. This gets Pa-paw started on some stories and the card game stops while the boys listen to tales of runaway horses, playing hooky, or dipping a school girl’s pigtails into the inkwells. The same stories I heard as a kid except the horses are faster, the schoolmaster was meaner, and the girls were uglier….
Around 11 pm the Television get turned on, and some of us break away to watch the mass at the Vatican. The boys continue to play cards, but Pa-paw is about give out. Grandma and Grandpa are usually good for one more game of euchre though and after that, most everyone heads home.
I help Kathy clean up. It is the end to a magical time. Tonight, everyone was on equal footing. Kids were not nagged. Pa-paw was not being watched over like a hawk to make sure he was not getting confused. The food is great and the games that were played didn’t need a joystick and everyone from 8 to 93 could understand them. It is a 4 to 6 hour time of total peace in our family, before the surprises of life start up again for the next year.
So different from that Christmas twenty some years ago in a foreign land; so wonderful, and so worth the wait.
posted by Brad Bachelor at 4:48 AM
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