The Santa Situation and Other Holiday Nuggets

It snowed Christmas Eve and the day before, (about 8" total) giving us a perfectly timed white Christmas.

Rhys, Bella, and I geared up for a Christmas Eve day stomp in the snow - no small task. Have you tried to put mittens on a fussy 18 mo. old lately?

Our great friends the Moon's and Van Der Bosh's joined us for a Christmas Eve feast of roast beast. Our three families combined for seven boys and one little girl, sweet Lucy Moon, all age 4 or under. Let's quickly do the math....hmm, oh, yes, it equals chaos. Buzzed on Christmas candy and electrified by the pending arrival of the Fat Man, the biggest of the small ones, Kelly, Willem, and Jack, frenetically tore the house apart, somehow avoiding injury during hours of roughhousing. Cocktails were consumed by all over the age of 4, certainly an ancient parental survival mechanism.

Cast in the role of Old St. Nick for my second year with the same group of mostly nice little boys and girl, before roast beast and after a few beers to perk my jolly-old-soul, I slipped away to Grandma Mary's house and changed into my Fat Man suit. The costume is deluxe complete with white beard and wig; fur trimmed hat, coat and nickers; round spectacles; and topped off by a well placed pillow around my middle, of course. I barley recognized myself.

Sack of Christmas gifts, straight from points north in hand, I rang the doorbell and gave my best "Ho, ho, ho!" The kids had been warned of Santa's arrival and I heard squeals and the pounding of running little feet from the other side of the door. I made my big entrance, greeting eight, wee, beaming faces with another ho, ho, ho and boomed, "Merry Christmas" for good measure. As a courtesy, I greeted the mostly naughty group of half-drunk parents and began my serious business: giving the first gift of Christmas to all the good little children. Randomly, I drew out Kelly's present first. He approached me with an appraising look, not smiling, quickly snatched his gift, and retreated out of my site line, screaming and crying. I doled out my bag of goodies to the other kids, staying in character and using my best baritone Santa voice to quiz the kids on their status: naughty or nice. All the while, Kelly was still freaking out. Catherine, wide-eyed, through clenched teeth, hissed, "You need to leave now. Kelly is freaking out because you're Santa." Kelly made me! He's only three. What?

Apparently, Kelly figured out, almost immediately, I was behind the beard and flipped out not wanting me to be Santa. Catherine, after realizing that Kelly had dissected the whole Santa charade, told him that Daddy was just pretending and that the real Santa would, in fact, visit our house later and bring him presents. He finally stopped crying 45 minutes later when, in a act of parental desperation, we stuck a candy cane in his mouth.

Due to the emotional trauma suffered by myself and eldest son, I would like to officially and publicly announce my retirement as one Christopher R. Kringle.

After spending the morning opening presents, Kelly put on his new fleece jacket and sunglasses and hiked a few blocks to our little neighborhood park. The snow was too cold and light to make a snowman, so we just flung handfuls in the air and rolled round in the powder. Despite the torments on Christmas Eve, dressed in his red Christmas pj's, Kelly had a joy-filled Christmas playing gracefully with his mountains of new toys and his loving, little brother.

The photo below of Rhys with blue ink on his face was the result of Kelly's unsupervised attempt to make Rhys look like a "Kitty Cat."

Beckett played the part of Christmas elf in his festive jumpers.