Christmas 2014: Chapters I and II
Christmas has come and gone but the memories and various plastic Frozen-theme schlock remain. Also, the lights are still up and will probably be so until March. The run up to Christmas was more rapid than ever, partially because Phoebe had accelerated the advent calendar to reflect the length of the solar day on Jupiter. I assembled the “ice castle” which was not official Disney merchandise but clearly was leveraging Frozen hysteria while trying their best to fly under the radar of Bob Iger. I managed to get that done several days ahead, being quite wary of my father’s own late Christmas Eve forays into the world of Barbie. At least now we have on demand. I can’t imagine the TV he endured in the wee hours of 1980 while piecing together the left-turn-only corvette. The ladies put out cookies which Santa forgot to eat and milk which Rudy helped himself to prior to the arrival of Santa. The girls followed our instructions and slept in until 8:00. We considered ourselves lucky as Cristin relayed facebook reports of wake time in the 6’s, 5’s, 4’s, and even 3’s (our neighbors). The girls are still in the mode of wanting to play with stuff before moving on so the morning stretched into the afternoon. As we were continuing the tradition of same day Howley Christmas I got the kids outside. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I was in no mood to spend the entirety of it in living rooms and in the car. Sometime late in the afternoon we packed up for Wellesley and the girls crashed out en route. Tootsie had assembled a separate kids table and we had a very pleasant adults dinner with what I consider a special treat – crab cakes! Maura had her hands on the Sonos control and steered the conversation away from rants with her not-so-subtle interjections of “Let it Go”. The girls slept in and headed to the Boffa’s in the morning which gave time for me to get a lunch in with Peter and a pleasant walk with him and the dogs around Wellesley. We headed home with a car full of stuff and two tired kids, which is the way every trip should end.
