Merry Christmas to everyone reading my blog!
This is our first Christmas in a very long time where we will actually have multiple days of celebration as a whole family. We opened the gifts between family members on Christmas Eve, and we managed to collect eight of the ten of us all in one place. As the kids have gotten older this has become harder and harder, so it has become more special.
This morning everyone opened their gifts from Santa. In the past this part of the day has been a free-for-all, with everyone tearing into their presents at the same time. Paper would fly everywhere, and it was difficult to see what everyone got. For weeks afterwards I would discover that someone got something really cool that I didn’t know they’d gotten on Christmas. The urgency of this part of the day was in part because the kids were always anxious to open their gifts and hated to wait…but the bigger time-dependency came from our hosting our large family gathering later in the day.
This year, our large family gathering was pushed to Saturday, the 28th. This afforded us additional time and a more leisurely pace for gift opening. So gifts were parceled out few at a time, and each family member opened a couple all by themselves. It was nice to see what everybody got, and it was nice to interact in a new and different way.
For some reason, we started a goofy tradition this year that I’m afraid is going to stick though. One of my twins offered that prior to opening gifts you had to do two star jumping jacks. If you’ve never done one before, you’re definitely missing out. Imagine jumping off the ground and extending both arms and feet so that you look like a star. It’s not a problem when you’re 11, 14, 17, 18, 20, or 22. Hectic Mom and I did our own variations, with Mom doing an asymmetrical star and I did the superstar pose from the movie Superstar: Dare to Dream. Needless to say, this was an interesting twist.
Of course, in my typically sarcastic way I fast-forwarded a few years to our emergency room visit where one or more family members are trying to explain how they got injured on Christmas morn. Some traditions are just worth having…you know?
We’re gearing up for our immediate family meal, and you can read more about what’s going on during that celebration in my companion blog Hectic-Kitchen.
So, from the Hectic Household here in snowy South-Central Kansas,
