christmas highlights: 2007

CHRISTMAS DAY:

jarom woke everyone up at 8:00 on the dot, including his cranky little sister bella, who soon cheered up upon realizing it was christmas morning and things were about to get crazy. joey, dad, and mikie arrived rather promptly, luckily for the kids, and mom, darin, amy, matt, orion and i were up in our jammers waiting around for the festivities to begin.

and with much hoopla, the festivities began.

stockings were overflowing with goodies. jarom got delighted with each little thing he pulled out; bella too, showing me things like natural toothpaste with giant happy grins. i got double duty stockings; one from darin too with my new favorite book of poetry, Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets. Equally exciting was my new favorite cd from Santa/mom called "a fine frenzy."

what were your favorite stocking stuffers this year?

then mikie played santa as we dug into the massive pile of presents. what fun! one after the other, piles of paper, piles of loot growing. toys and books and polaroid film and clothes and gloves and cds and movies. high school musical, magic moustaches, lakota calendars, edible plant books, cozy knee socks, little mermaid dolls, xylophones, tambourines, art pencils, notebooks for writing down all enchanted ideas and songs and snippets of thoughts. digital recorder for story plots and interviews. gold rush history. teething rings. oh everything, everything, everything you could imagine on this jolly christmas morning.

my favorite thing is to watch people open the presents i give them and see if they like them.

for example, i was proud and a little nervous about how much joey liked the "el diablo" flask i gave him. for dad's sake i almost waited until his 21st birthday, but let me just say i TRUST joey and others i love to make decent decisions and have fun and be alive but also to be careful with the most delicious gift of all: LIFE!

the big moment was the DS opening. jarom's classic reaction: extremely excited, but strangely beautifully calm about it, trying to convince his dad that he was the one who wanted it so badly. and then that moment, when matt says, "are you excited jarom?" "yeah! i'm so excited!" "what do you say?" and that big grateful loving look at mikie as he exclaims "THANK YOU MIKIE!" right into the camera, as we all burst into laughter, and nana and papa don't mind not getting the credit cause they so appreciate that reaction.

next up: mom makes monkey bread, getting dressed in our christmas clothes, addie and art arrive with shrimp and white wine (jk, i just can't say the word shrimp without accompanying it with white wine), matt and amy and kids go to the smiths', the rest of us hog on monkey bread, dad picks up the chaotic mess of trash, we open a few gifts with addie and artie, the boys do wolf tattoos, darin goes to work, mom and dad leave to cook at his house, addie and i play lazer tag with the cats, mikie and art make mulled wine, and we start cooking.

potluck dinner! everyone's back together. the spread includes but is not limited to: chile relleno casserole, cheesy potatoes, curried tofu and veggies, huge pot of brown rice, fruity jello, green salad, rolls, veggies and dip, sweet potatoes, what am i forgetting? anyway, good good stuff and we sit at tv trays in the living room and pig out and all is well.

more present opening occurred at some point but i can't remember if it was before or after dinner. addie and art and the rest of us exchange our gifts. jarom officially gets his ant farm which he opened earlier but made a point of telling a "secret" to addie "i didn't open any of your presents yet."

i will take this moment in this extremely long blog to say that i cannot say enough how much i appreciate the thought and care and love that my family puts into christmas. no matter how much i say i want to "consume" less, i do truly appreciate the love put into our gift giving. addie, my turquoise ring is my favorite piece of jewelry ever. amy, our scrapbook has quickly become one of my most treasured belongings that i plan to put more and more love into. mom and dad, it was so fun to get my globe the next day! after the giant surprise of our gorgeous new silverware collection!!!! i seriously cannot believe how much you got me and i would never try to deny how much enjoyment i will get out of all of it.

just to finish up my memories of the day. so, stan shows up and gets a couple presents and later we play scattergories which, as we all know, was addictively outrageously fun and one of our best christmas memories, i think. artie and addie couldn't stop until like 2 in the morning even though art had to work at, what? 7 am?! it is too bad darin had to go to work, but at least he got a few heated rounds in. amy and matt wow me with their game playing skills, and mikie, you did real good until the end!!!!

last christmas memory, and a lasting one for mikie i'm sure, is mikie palely heading into the bathroom to vomit up his whole christmas dinner, whoopsie-daisy. luckily, watching the chipmunk adventure the next day curled up in a blanket seems to have cured him!

so i went to bed in my soft old-fashioned new flannel nightgown and slept wrapped in the cozy most precious heart-overflowing warmth and safety of the endless love of my family. christmas couldn't have been any more wonderful and i am so grateful to be here in the midst of this amazing family, and i thank you all once again for being so kind and fun and thoughtful and adventurous and creative and dreamy and talkative and inspiring and full of love and goodness.