Only partly tongue-in-cheek, I often think that the best Christmas I ever had was when we were living in Calgary and Shea had to work on a 7am to 3pm shift on Christmas Day, leaving me all alone for the day.
It sounds sad but it turned out to be a wonderful, relaxing, enjoyable day. I woke up late, played a few games of NHL 2000 (which is probably still one of my all-time favourite video games), went for a walk down a deserted Red Mile, stopped at the Mac’s convenience store for some snacks and a nice chat with the guy working that day, watched some Christmas specials on TV.
Relatives across the city kept calling to ask if I wanted to come over and I kept saying “Oh, thanks for the offer but I’m happy to just take it easy and relax here – honest!” (We did go to my Aunt & Uncle’s later in the day for supper after Shea got off – we weren’t being completely anti-social!)
This year has a lot of echoes of that year…
Shea’s mom had to work today and my folks were up north so it was just Shea, Pace, Sasha and I for Christmas today instead of all the extended family that we normally see. We love when they’re all here of course (and we’ll have a “late” Christmas with Shea’s and my folks in a couple days which is really cool too as it means “Christmas” and all the related good stuff of food, music and so on gets extended for us!) but it was nice to have a quieter Christmas with just the four of us (well, as relaxing as it gets with a 6 year old who’s bouncing off the walls and an eight month old who’s not sure what all the fuss is about but certainly knows something is up.)
We had our first fondue in ages last night and managed to not have anybody get stabbed or burn the house down so that’s a good start. Some family friends stopped by so we had a nice visit with them. A few Christmas drinks. Delicious snacks. Pace even saw the *real” Santa (as opposed to mall Santas who he knows aren’t real) for the third time in his life,
The first was when a neighbour in a Santa suit came to my mom and dad’s when Pace was pretty small but he’s seen the photo so “knows” he saw Santa. Then, a couple years ago, we saw Santa running down the street in front of Shea’s parents late one night. (Pace wondered why this Santa was so skinny which meant I made a quick modification of the legend, explaining to Pace that Santa doesn’t eat much all year then gets fat again in a single night of cookies and milk gluttony and it was still early so he wasn’t too fat yet!)
Last night’s sighting was a total fluke. I caught a glimpse of somebody in a Santa suit across the street, hurried Pace to the window and his first instinct was to bolt to bed! Then he reconsidered and grabbed the iPad to look up where Santa was on the NORAD Santa Tracker. (I had to scramble with my explanation – “Well, Greenland” which is where the tracker showed Santa “is really close to Regina. I imagine Santa’s not delivering presents here yet – he just zoomed by to see how many kids are asleep already!” 😉
Having a baby makes the whole “Christmas night” thing a bit more difficult as well – Sasha woke up a few times through the night and though Pace normally sleeps through her crying, he was so keyed up, he kept waking up too. Luckily, we were able to keep him from going out to the living room in the middle of the night or else we might’ve been opening presents at 3am.
The morning arrived and Pace came to our room (as his mom had told him to do instead of going for a sneak peek at the presents which I’d told him to do!) 😉 and then we all went out to see the presents that Santa had laid out (including a turducken that “Santa Mom” had snuck under the tree at 5am and two new coffee cups that “Santa Daddy” put by the Keurig before being the last one to go to bed.)
We all opened presents – I’d say the split was 70% Pace, 20% Sasha and 5% each for mom and dad – and the kids both got some excellent gifts (plus I was most happy that neither got anything too large and clunky!)
What else? We had a relaxing day after the gifts were open. Even with video games and other “inside” temptations, one of the first things Pace wanted to do was go for a ride on his new toboggan. So I pulled him around the block on it. Then it was setting up Lego sets, playing new video games and trying out various other new toys, games and art supplies. We even got to bake a batch of cookies in his new Easy Bake Oven!
Daddy got a nice nap in the afternoon then Shea and her sous chef prepared one of the best meals we’ve ever had – prime rib roast with sriracha horseradish, garlic cream cheese mashed potatoes, salad with red wine vinaigrette, peas, yorkshire pudding (first time Shea ever made them and they were unbelievably good!) plus some gourmet chocolates for dessert.
Now, as I type this, we’re all sitting in our living room in a stupor (not a Rob Ford stupor though – that’s for New Year’s Eve!) 😉 Pace is playing his new Marvel Lego Super-heroes game, Shea and Sasha are on the floor passing a ball back and forth and I’m thinking about how I’ve got a new contender for “Best Christmas Ever”.
Merry Christmas everybody – thanks, as always, for reading! 😉
