Christmas!

Mac a hit!

Mikey still in the dark about Disneyland

"You got me a Mac?" he said as he opened the gift bag. "We got you THE Mac," Grandma answered, "It's the one you've been using," she added, as a grin surfaced on David's face. Outside of the chocolate-covered marshmallow Santa (consumed immediately), the only other thing that had brought a big smile to that point was an iTunes card.

When I started probing Mikey earlier in the month, "What do you want for Christmas?" he responded, "Presents!"

I tried to get a clarification - the best we did was when his Mom asked him. His response? "Candy cane!"

Because Mikey has no real concept of time, except short amounts, he has not been told that his present is an annual pass to Disneyland. The Southern California pass isn't good right now, and won't be, until Jan. 3 anyhow.

You never know with Mikey - this year, the one thing that caught on was a Sesame Street book with buttons and sounds that has Christmas songs and carols. The container of animals got an open but was quickly abandoned quickly.

This has been quite an up-and-down Christmas for me. Usually my favorite time of year - and still is - there have just been a bunch of downers that have sapped some - but certainly not all - of the joy out of the season. None of them had anything to do with the boys. Our daughter was in a car accident (everyone's more-or-less OK) and then she got sick right before Christmas. She was well enough to come over for a couple of hours, but not the usual whole day.

Some family members got upset with other family members, and refused to show up at the same place as the "other" family members (we elected the "Dear Abby" response of "Everyone is welcome here and we're not changing whom we invite.") It discombooberated the routine.

On the up side, I had a wonderful visit with one of my sisters in Florida in early December, and one of our brothers was able to join us for a day.

I did not get to the usual baking (minus) because of some construction we had at the house running almost until Thanksgiving - and the cleanup afterward really took a lot of time. OTOH, all the decorations got up (plus) in plenty of time !! And the house is VERY clean (double plus).

And Christmas Day, while somewhat quieter than usual with the reduced crowd, was actually very nice and much more placid than usual. My husband and I had a wonderful, quiet morning to share gifts and I even had time to add omelettes to our traditional Mexican hot chocolate and sweet breads. The boys had a wonderful day - not a single incident to report - and we did get to spend dinner with our daughter. So while it was not "the ususal chaos" it was a good Christmas.