Family Christmas

We had our family Christmas at my aunt’s house this year. We all gathered there on Sunday, December 16th to celebrate Christmas together. Everyone was assigned a dish to bring - Salad, main dish, side dish, dessert, or whatever. Mine was a side dish, so I made corn casserole. There was so much food there! And it was all very good.

We were unable to find a Santa this year, so they decided to leave Santa’s bag on the porch with a note from Santa. When my cousin brought it in, Conor was sooooo excited. He was jumping up and down, smiling, saying “There’s a Santa’s bag! Santa has been here!”

After the letter had been read telling how Santa had an emergency at his workshop and couldn’t be there, the gifts were handed out. Conor opened his and his shoulders slumped down, he got really sad and he walked back into the toy room and sat. I followed him to see what was wrong with him and he explained to me that he thought he was going to get a puppy because he wanted one really bad.

I explained to him that we were not getting another dog and that Santa would not bring live animals to kids unless their parents said it was OK. And that I told Santa we didn’t need another animal.

This did very little to make him feel better, but he did come back out to join the other kids playing with their toys. When we returned, a couple of people asked what was wrong with him, so I explained that he thought he was going to get a puppy. With that, my uncle John and my cousin Pete both decided to comfort Conor by telling him that Santa couldn't have left him a puppy today... the puppy would have been hurt when the bag fell from the sky as Santa flew over. Then they proceeded to tell him that Santa would be bringing him a puppy on Christmas morning at his house.

"Ummm, no, there will be no puppy for Christmas. Mommy already talked to Santa and told him we did not want another dog at this time." This did very little to dissuade them.

"Oh, come on Kate! I remember you always got EVERYTHING you wanted for Christmas, how can you deny your son a puppy?" This was from Pete.

So not true.

Delusional as they were, they did enjoy the situation. It went on for a few minutes, til Conor started ignoring them and playing with the other kids.

My cousin Gary and I took turns traveling down memory lane - all the things we did together as kids at Grandma's house. He remembers some stuff that I did not, I remember some stuff he did not - lots of laughter with those memories. That would be a fun project - getting together with all my cousins and getting them to tell me the stories they remember from Grandma's house.

Most of the kids got some sort of toy that shoots balls or Styrofoam things - and they ran around shooting each other. Some of the balls are probably still lost at Judy's house. We stayed for a few hours, socializing, watching football, and relaxing before going home to take naps... ;)

It was a fun day - yeah, I should have written about it sooner, and I might have remembered more of the details! I'm trying to catch up now...