Christmas morning was filled with the cries of “When can we open presents!” The older children stumbled out of their rooms, slowly making their way down the spiral steps while the two younger ones could hardly contain themselves. We started slowly opening the gifts with Will designated the “gift elf” distributing packages in an orderly manner. After an hour of this leisurely pace, we still had a mountain of boxes to wade through so we paused to get the Christmas turkey into the oven.
This was the year of jewelry; the girls were showered with baubles and gems and they gladly put on an assortment of items and began to look like living Christmas trees. We aren’t out of “noisy gifts from relatives” phase quite yet and Will received a remote-controlled helicopter which has proved the claim “Indestructible!” It continues to fly around, making landings in unusual places (like the lit candles on the table). We are happy the batteries eventually need to be recharged.
The meal was titled “Thanksgiving Redux” and we enjoyed turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie and a variety of desserts. Late in the afternoon, we took a walk around the village and enjoyed seeing the Nativity scenes displayed in homes and shop windows. So we say, “silent night, holy night.”