Aftermath

Christmas was pretty great.  The family gathered Christmas eve (even my parents showed up after all) for feasting a giving gifts.  Kim cooked her traditional Chicken Fried Steak.  It was fantastic.  Everyone else brought the trimmings this year.  That was good for Kim, spared her some work.

Presents were opened and everyone seemed to enjoy them.  I got way to many gifts.  They kept handing them to me, one after another.  I was a bit embarrassed by the amount.  I had a pile around me.  Nothing expensive, so that’s good, just a lot of things, books, CD’s and other things.  Our whole family was blessed more than we deserve and we are grateful.

I really wasn’t looking forward to Christmas Day since the rest of the family had other places to be.  Kim and I would be home alone.  That’s good most of the time, but Christmas day has always been a day full of family and all that goes with it.  Something I most always enjoyed and looked forward to.  As it turned out, it was pretty good too.  My Daughter(in-law) invited us over Christmas morning to see the kids get their Santa gifts.  We have never done this in the past, I felt they needed their own ‘family Christmas’ without us getting in the way.  This time was different, the kids are older now (5 & 7) and since we would have nothing to do, we headed over.  Which meant getting up at 5:15 am to get there in time.  We were still late even getting there before 7 am.  The excitement of Santa just couldn’t be contained in those little bodies.  I still remember how it was for me.  It would have been pure torture for them to wait until we got there.  We still got to see them open gifts from their Mom and Dad.  We then had breakfast there and my Daughter makes these fantastic homemade cinnamon rolls.  I can’t eat them but I did eat a small bite.  It was as great as they looked and smelled.   

We headed home after a couple hours and actually went to bed.  We had only had about 4 hours sleep, so we passed out for a while.  Well Kim did.  I was zonked out and Kim had an involuntary leg jerk and kicked me awake.  Nap over about 20 minutes in.  Once that happens it’s over for me.

Mom and Dad are still struggling with a few things from the move.  They aren’t familiar with the area, so can’t find some places they need to go and have trouble even finding their way out to our house.  They just haven’t learned all the ‘landmarks.’  That’s how Mom gets around anyway, mostly by landmarks.  When they have needed to go to the bank or some other place they usually use, they have headed all the way back across town to their familiar haunts.  We have been planning to take them around their area to help them get familiar with things but time has been an issue.  We may wait until most of the holiday workforce is back to work and school is in session.  It makes a significant difference in traffic.  I most likely will suggest that Mom drive so she gets the actual hands-on feel for where we are going etc.  Not sure what the most effective way to do that will be.  I am sure it will take several times for them to get somewhat comfortable with the area.  But Mom always does things much different than others.   I’m sure she will have her own way of doing things anyway.

Happy Trails