On to the next!

OK I think Christmas is finally done! It was a busy, fun and exhausting day. Not necessarily in that order. We were up by 6:30 as we have to leave our house by 8 to get to church on time. Actually if I knew that Dunkin Donuts wasn't going to be crowded and if I knew the roads were always clear I could leave at about 8:15. But sometimes Dunkins is really crowded and as this is KC's breakfast, I have to factor that in. So we actually got to church a goodly bit early but it was nice to sit and listen to the youth choir practice. KC liked looking at all the drums that Matt Meyers brought with him. www. rhythmrevelations.com is I think a website that gives his bio and talks about his music. He is an amazing young man with a great musical gift. I love hearing his music. Watching him when he plays I see some of the same traits in KC. KC sort of shuts his eyes when he plays music and seems to be spirit wise, some place else. Matt is like that too. KC stayed in church with me for the whole service soaking up the musical ambiance like the little music sponge that he is. Matt's talk on social justice was pretty cool too as far as I was concerned. Want another reason not to buy from Mickey D's? They used to buy their tomatos from businesses in FL that treated their workers essentially like slaves. Took the workers 9 years to get better pay and treatment.

After service, I never went to fellowship, but gathered the kids and boogied for home. I knew Kirsty would be stressing over getting things ready for her family's visit and sure enough, she was.

Rob and I stepped into the breech as it were. I made place cards and he set the table. I got the salad together and Lissa in her party duds. I frosted and decorated Lynne's birthday cake and before long, we were set. Everyone was set to arrive between 11:00 and 11:30. Dad and Lynne (K's sis) arrived on time. No sign of brother Bri and his girlfriend. Hmmm. Clock ticks. KC is antsy. His grampa has walked in with presents and now he can't touch them. He watches anxiously out the window. Still no sign of Uncle and his girlfriend. Finally Lynne says she told them to come between 12 and 12:30 because after all they are always late anyway. What??? Why would you do that? Now they will be even later. Which they were, but of course they didn't know they were an hour late becuase of the inaccurate time given by Lynne. Note to self: next year convey details ourselves. No middle person. I think some family members (naming no names LOL) may have a bit of passive aggressive issues going on and love mucking up the works.

And the works did get mucked because by 12:45 Lissa had to go down for a nap and KC was cranky as all get out from the tenterhooks feeling of impending presents and a lack of food. Probably for the first time in the 30 yrs Lynne and i have known each other did I quietly give her a sincere talking to about what her actions did. I am not sure whether she just has no clue how kids have only so much stamina for waiting (we are the only people in the family with children) or if she just likes screwing things up.

Bri finally got there and I sure didn't want him to know what the delay caused. AFter all, he thinks they are only a few minutes late. So we do presents while Lissa is sleeping. They are very generous and loving in their choice of gifts for the kids, and seem genuinely appreciative of the gifts we and the kids made for them. We have dinner. Yum. Everything delish and Bri and Dad mention how we always "do" things nicely. On their own they all eat take out and TV dinners so it must look like something out of a BBC movie when we all 12 sit down to table together! :-) It was simple fare but tasty. The funny thing is I bet they had no clue that they were eating vegetarian crumbles for the beef in the ziti bake. There are only 2 slices of lemon merenque pie left and Lynne took her bday cake home. We were finally able to wake Lissa after we ate and she opened her gifts then.

Then we could all relax and socialize a while, eventually the X Games got turned on. Robbie loves them and in a bizarre twist of fate, I have always liked them. I am sort of an adrenaline junkie who had to swear to my spouse that I would do nothing high risk while we had children under 18. I snuck karate past her for 12 yrs (by the time she realized how many people in my class were getting wrecked I was so far along toward my second degree black belt that she toughed it out) I often tease her that the reason she has always agreed to adding children to our family is that at this rate I'll be something like 72 when I get to hike the AT end to end, try bungee jumping and take that rapelling class I've always wanted to do.

But I digress. So I sate my adrenaline rush third party watching people do back flips on snowmobiles! Rob I know would never in a billion years try anything like that so it is totally safe to watch it with him. KC now, I don't know. The night before we watched the slope style snowboarding and he was practicing his moves jumping off the couch!

Eventually everyone decided to head out for their respective homes and I set about restoring order and removing Christmas for real. KC has been dying to do another valentine craft and as we took down the Yule mural tonite, he and I did one. Rob and KC have spent a couple of weeks messing around with water colors and seeing what the colors would do with different papers and treatments. They have both enjoyed it. I had about 16 pages of impressionistic art and we cut them into hearts and glued them onto a big posterboard. It looks stunning. He is thrilled and it truly brightens the dining room. It struck me that although it was a decoration for a new holiday it was also a bright and tangible symbol of what was best and brightest about this day, the love that holds our crazy and diverse family together!