Christmas 2022

 

All in all, not a bad Christmas at all.

In fact, one of the better ones I think.

Little One finished up her first semester at college on the 14th. The Mrs. picked her up and she slept fourteen hours the next day. Man, they must be working her hard over there at UD. Either that or she needed to marshal her strength: for the next eight days she’d be wrapping gifts and stocking displays at the local Macy’s. She made a pile of dough, but those eight straight days of eight plus hours in the midst Christmas rush took a lot out of her.

I took a PTO day on Friday so I ended up with a four-day weekend. We all did some last minute shopping, decorating, and food purchasing. I wrapped four gifts to each member of my immediate family. We watched some holiday flicks at night and ate some delicious home cooking. It was cozy, comfortable and warm.

I mention “warm” because Texas – as well as most of the country – is in the midst of an arctic bomb or a polar vortex or whatever they call a cold spell these days. Temps plummeted to the teens down here just north of Dallas. Which is rare, though not unheard of. The biggest danger is a burst pipe, as they’re not insulated as well as they’d be up north from what I understand. So we let the faucets drip drip drip overnight and tried to stay indoors as much as possible. When Patch walked the dog we had to dress him up with the canine hoodie for him to stay insulated.

Since Little One is a night owl, Patch wakes up with the dawn, and the Mrs. and I were completely and utterly exhausted from all the last-minute running around, we weighed pros and cons and decided on Midnight Mass this year. It was wonderful. We got to church early and managed to snag aisle seats near the back and enjoyed a tasteful, reverent nativity mass. The music was traditional and not overdone, the sermon short and on point, and we got home and all in bed by 1:45 am.

Surprisingly, I woke first Christmas morning. Gone are the days of toddlers and tweens waking us up at 6 am to open presents. Soon we were all up and after a quick breakfast sat to dispense gifts to each other.

I have to pat myself on the back – this year was one of my best in gift giving. See, I did this thing which I highly recommend to you all. When an idea pops into your head for a gift for someone, or when you notice something about someone and an idea clicks, type it into a folder in your phone, and start doing this January 1. I did, and by summer’s end I had the perfect present for each of my three girls. For the wife I bought an authentic Aaron Judge jersey, New York Yankees #99, and sweated for a brief couple of days a few weeks ago when the big guy was flirting with a trade to San Francisco. Patch, well on her way to morphing into a gym rat, received a set of kettlebells – 5 lb, 10 lb, and 15 lb. And Little One, my CSI SVU Dateline junkie, received a very funny Keith Morrison mug and coffee thermos.

They enjoyed them all. Better than last minute gift cards.

What did your blog host get, you ask?

Well, as always, I received more than I should and more than I deserved. I can’t rank the presents my girls gave me because I loved them all. In no particular order –

   Two records – one of Mozart chorales, one of violin concertos by Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn

   An AC/DC t-shirt

   A Civil War card game

   A new pair of gray Allbirds, my favorite wheels

   Ear buds, a stress puzzle, fuzzy socks

   And two tickets to see the Dallas Stars (20-9-6 in first place in the NHL Central Division at the time of this posting) play the Anaheim Ducks (record basically inverted compared to the Stars) in February

   Oh, and two gift cards to be used to purchased books

 

All in all, not a bad haul. To top it off, I finished Martin Chuzzlewit last night and then the four of us watched Christmas Vacation.

On a side note, my boss gave us all the next two weeks to work from home. So no battling rush hour commuting. That was a nice, unexpected treat.

But the reason of the season, er, the Reason for the Season, is not lost on me. I have some big plans upcoming regarding that, which I may or may not post here. Perhaps in a couple of weeks. I have been thinking about doing a two regular once-a-week postings, one on music and the other on religion, in 2023. It’s something I’d like to do since I don’t have the time anymore to fatten up this blog with daily posts. We’ll see. I’m still pondering that.

Merry Christmas all!