Happy Christmas Eve
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas Eve awoke in cold rose and gold that morning.
After the party was over the night before, Mom, Frances, and Linnea ran up the stairs at around seven to hand over two plates of Christmas foods and another plate of dessert from Uncle Balthasar’s and Aunt Tuuli’s, while Grandma, Dad, and the girls waited in the van. Apparently they had a wonderful time.
“Fernando is just a gem,” Mom said, speaking of Polly’s “intended”.
And he was about the same height as Polly, which was saying a lot, because Polly was very tall – probably taller than Aunt Galena.
“Oh, and Jashub! He has the long wavy hair going back and he just looks so healthy and strong…”
(Two years of Australia would do that to anyone.)
“He and Carrie got to talk a whole lot about New Zealand and Australia for the girls’ trip. And Carrie got to talk a lot with Samwise too… We just had a great time.”
Grandma Snicketts had also sent up a Christmas gift for the baby – a small turtle that lit up and played eighteen different (quiet) songs when his shell was pressed. She had ordered the same one for Brit and Lilli’s baby too, who was now due in five weeks.
And as always, things were learned about future family plans over the holidays – Travis would be shipped to Iraq in two years and Samwise was leaving the following fall after graduation to study Chinese and international business (hoping to eventually land a position as ambassador).
Meanwhile, Collette had recovered enough to attend the church service that morning. And OLeif was still feeling fine.
Following church, OLeif and Collette headed over to the house, picked up sandwiches with the family and ate on the way to Grandpa Snicketts to see him and Martha and Amanda, who was back in town for the holidays. There was another round of gifts there – gift certificates to Olive Garden for Mom and Dad and OLeif and Collette, The Limited for Carrie-Bri and Rose, The Gap for Joe, and Target for Frances and Linnea (Frances’ gift card was even a peppermint scratch ‘n sniff). While they sat and discussed various trips that Amanda had to take during her top-secret job hours (and her boyfriend who spoke fluent Arabic and was FBI and all his trips…), Linnea played with the new blind three-year old kitty for awhile in the other room.
“Yes, I only have North Africa and London to visit this year,” Amanda said. “I’m so glad… travel is not glamorous, not glamorous at all.”
Then followed another gift exchange back at the house between the gifts OLeif and Collette had brought and those that were for them from the family. OLeif was given a clothing gift card (badly needed) and all thirty-five hours on ten discs of The Matrix. Collette had a flashy red Cardinals baseball cap and t-shirt. For everyone from OLeif and Collette – the usual gift certificate towards Scotland for Mom and Dad and a framed print of Thomas Kincaid with Jesus and little lambs for Mom (in a silver frame that OLeif picked out all by himself with no help), a bottle of 100% organic pomegranate juice and a large British flag for Carrie-Bri, a four-cup coffee maker for Joe, cash for Frances to put towards his next air-soft gun (Collette did at least wrap up the money in Christmas paper), and an American Girl doll camp outfit for Linnea for her Liberty Bell doll. Rose had already been given her gift earlier – money towards her mah-jongg set. But her smaller gift from them had been discarded earlier that morning.
Frances and Linnea had come running up to Collette at church:
“Collette! Collette! Trooper ate your Christmas present for Rose! It’s all gone!”
“That dog needs a good kick,” Collette said darkly.
She explained later to Rose that the small package had contained luffa seeds, some of which Rose had managed to save. Come time of full ripeness, once peeled, the vegetable-like plants would serve as luffa sponges. Rose maintained that Trooper would likely end up scattering the rest of the seeds over the yard and she would have a crop of luffa sponges already planted come spring. But that was hardly worth mentioning.
After a Cecil Whittakers dinner at home, everyone was off to the Christmas Eve evening service at church – a candlelight service, despite the fire hazard of it all.
The evening ended with Diana and Eve coming over for an hour or so to talk about plans and work on a particularly impossible Elvis jigsaw puzzle which Eve had given to Carrie. After Eve had put together four pieces and none of the other girls had found a single match, they called it an evening.
Meanwhile, Collette was getting excited for Carrie-Bri and Rose. They were leaving in only three short days. That’s how Collette got an adrenalin rush – visiting foreign soils, or thinking about visiting foreign soils.
Another successfully pleasant Christmas Eve…