Christmas odds and ends

Christmas is in 7 days. Six if you don’t count today. Even though I made a big effort to do my shopping early this year there always seems to be a few random things to get and errands to run. I need to do that today.

My brother Tyler is coming over for Christmas day. I can’t remember the last time he was there on Christmas day. I am really looking forward to it.

The past several years I have thought of really awesome gifts to make for my mom. Once you get into a pattern of cool home made gifts it is hard to go back to just buying something. I made her a cool calendar for her birthday this year and but could not think of something to get/make her for Christmas. Everyone else was shopped for but I still hadn’t figured out what to get her. I finally thought of something and I think she will like it. But I was a little sad that it wasn’t as cool as the past two years.

We had been planning on driving up to Washington on Friday so we could be there all day Christmas Eve. This has been the plan for a while. I am positive that I told Mom about this plan. Then yesterday I was talking to her on the phone.

“ I was talking to Dad and we both think it would be awesome if you could drive up on Friday, instead of Saturday.” Mom said.

“We are driving up on Friday. We should be there by dinner time.” I say.

“Really?”

“Yep”

“I am so excited! I thought you wouldn’t be here until Saturday evening. Now we will have all day on Christmas Eve. Dad will be so happy! It’d like an early Christmas present! I’m glad we talked today, now I can look forward to you being there on Friday!”

That’s pretty much how the conversation went, except I don’t think my mom would ever use that many exclamation points in one paragraph. So I might not have gotten her an amazing homemade gift this year but I did make her happy by coming up Friday instead of Saturday.

Speaking of my mom, a few weeks ago we got a package from her with about 50 small wrapped presents with my kids names on them. They were numbered up to 16. So each of my four kids and occasionally Michael and I to have gotten to open a little present for the 16 days before we go to Moses Lake. The kids have been loving it. And the presents have been fun, reindeer rubber ducks, popsicle stick snowman crafts, a kaleidoscope (this was a big hit), hacky sacs etc. Then today they opened these.

The kids loved them. But I don’t think mom was thinking about what would happen if you give paddle balls to three kids 6 years old and under all at once.

“Mom what’s this, how do I do it?” One of them asks.

“Like this.” I demonstrate how to bounce the ball on the paddles. They all start waving them wildly about.

Within about 10 minutes all three kids had been whacked with a paddle or ball about 20 times. There were tears of frustration, because it “wouldn’t work right.” One ball had a chunk bitten out of it and another was broken. The Christmas tree had a close call as well as my favorite nativity. Soon another paddle ball broke and during that 1o minutes I don’t think any of them were able to successfully bounce the ball two consecutive times on the paddle.

So overall they were a big hit. I think the paddle balls will find their way to the recycle bin before lunch today.

I can’t wait until Christmas.