26
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Collette was 26.
She could not decide if that sounded terribly older than 25, or relatively about the same.
It had snowed a little the previous night. And the white dust continued to fall during breakfast.
Church. Christmas Sunday and a forest of poinsettias. Silver sky. Just the way Collette liked it.
Back to the house for leftover Icelandic Christmas cake.
Puck walked around handing out invisible mail out of a pink satin Victoria’s Secret bag while he tried to snag granola bars from the pantry.
“The mail man will stop growing if he doesn’t have a bar!” he insisted.
Dad, Mom, and Francis shortly later returned with stacks of groceries.
“Happy birthday,” said Francis, and then laughed. “I almost said ‘Merry birthday’.”
“Memorial is having a Christmas Eve-Eve service, a Christmas Eve service, and even a New Year’s Eve service this year,” said Carrie next.
“That’s because there are so many singles there,” Rose explained, promptly. “At midnight we’ll all give each other high fives or something.”
“No,” said Carrie with a grin. “You’ll start doing the Christian side-hug.”
Grandma arrived not long later. And then Dad came up from the basement where he had been writing devotions.
“What?” he said. “You’d think someone was having a birthday or something.”
At lunch of delicious homemade basil-tomato soup and baked Brie in a beautiful pastry shell, prepared by Carrie-Bri… conversation centered chiefly around roadkill…
Then came out the cake.
Grandma had once again outdone herself with a full landscape of Ballykissangel, the village itself, over Irish green countryside, including a thatched roof over Fitzgerald’s Pub that Grandma had found in an antique store, affixed a sign out on the front, and painted the doors blue, more little cottages, and a bridge over a blue sugar creek. Photographs, Donal’s truck with Eamon’s sheep, and music from the show. Plus a glass shamrock-angel ornament that lit up with different colors. It was a beautiful work of art.
Later followed the first round of gifts. From Grandma.
A grand total of Christmas M’nMs, two Ballykissangel books, and the complete Ballykissangel DVD series. Generous and perfect, as usual.
Later…
Grandma left for home to beat the possible inclement weather.
And everyone else gathered in the living room for the much-belated family Christmas photo, while Joe and Francis were involved in some arm battling and all of the usual jokes.
Then gifts from the family.
Joe presented Collette with his present, wrapped in a sock, reportedly off of his bedroom floor, and a duct tape bow. Within this gift, was a fantastic Moleskine twelve-book yearly schedule series in twelve bright colors. And then from the family: a gray and white Fair Isle sweater, which was beautiful, and then the entire seven seasons of Monarch of the Glen. The Snicketts family knew how to throw a good birthday.
In the evening, OLeif was to play at the choir cantata.
Collette and Puck dropped him off, and then to the airport to pick up Evangeline and Hesed, just in from California. Their flight arrived 25 minutes later, and after a quick stop by QT, and Baby Hesed being an absolute trooper, two-thirds of the Rye family were back home to their little Christmas tree.
Then back to church, just in time for the cookie reception, where Collette split a red velvet version with Puck, who had fallen asleep in his grandma’s arm during the cantata.
And home to a quiet little house, Cheez-Its, more Brie — OLeif’s favorite, and 30 Rock re-runs.