Merry Happy Christmas

Sunday, December 25, 2011
In which the nearly complete tribe gathers once again together…

The Christmas service was a little sparse that morning with the visiting associate minister from Kirk of the Hills. Although Puck found the matter intriguing, given that all the children were called forward to participate in the lesson illustration given about a donkey.
And Daisy-Jean was present to exchange gifts with Puck, which included a painted glass donkey ornament for Puck. The red-booted little man was very happy.

Amongst the sizable stacks of gifts back with the Snicketts tribe, included lamb rub and the travels of John Cook for Rose, and t-shirts for the boys that Mom and Carrie had prepared with Star Trek monograms: in orange for Dad reading ‘Make it So”, and for the boys in dark red: ’01’ for Joe and ’02’ for Francis. There were 7-inch stitched wisteria earrings in charcoal gray for Collette. Andy Williams collection for Dad. Floral embroidered pillows for Mom, jumper cables for Joe, and bike gloves for Francis. A purse for Carrie in dark yellow, wall moon ‘for the buns’, clothing in British Flags and MIZZOU tigers for Linnea. Air popcorn popper and Cards shirt for Puck. A flask and prayer book for the rabbi… etc., etc., etc.
Then Carrie and Mom prepared the apple dumplings, which called for a dousing of ginger ale.
Rose, having completed another level of stain on her coffee table, was contemplating foreign language programs, and would still hang out at the house through Monday to take advantage of some heavy after-Christmas shopping with Carrie.
Shortly later, Carrie came up the stairs, fanning a few shiny gift cards in hand…
“I just earned 60 bucks,” she said, almost proudly. “I just promised to cook Francis breakfast for two weeks, and I sold Joe stock in a company that doesn’t exist yet.”

Meanwhile, it was countdown to 4:30 at the Black house in New Town.
Missing that year, unfortunately, for the fourth year in a row, was Uncle Clarence and Aunt Galena (who had already been in town twice that year from South Carolina) and Schroeder (who had come for Grandpa’s funeral in August), as well as Samwise (once again visiting her girlfriend’s family in China).
So… some teasing of Jashub was clearly in order. Three dates with a beautiful former choir acquaintance could not not be teased about.
And Blessing was making plans to move to Austin, Texas, in the next few months after contemplating Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well.
But the biggest news of the evening was when Uncle Hilario gathered the family and announced for Fernando and Polly, that Polly was expecting, due on the Fourth of July.
Then they got around to the build-your-own sandwiches, huge pan of cheesy-tomato-y mostaccioli, and the spread of Carrie’s apple dumplings, jumbo pumpkin pie and apple pie, etc., and everyone caught up on each other’s lives.
Bristol, Nerissa, and the twins arrived later. Starlight, the younger, was already a couple of inches taller than her sister, Sunlight.
And Travis, Tammie, and the two girls arrived shortly later. It was tiny Heathers’ debut to the family, wrapped in her deep red taffeta dress and not fussing a wink throughout the evening.
Puck and Liselotte raced through their meal.
“Done, Mama!” Puck declared, anxious to begin the games.
“Put your plate in the trash,” Collette directed him.
When Jashub joined the table shortly later, sporting some lengthening curly sand-blonde locks, he was laughing…
“Puck comes in there and says to me, ‘Excuse me, sir! But where is the trash?’”
And so Puck and Liselotte had already taken off in a mammoth game of tag that didn’t end until Grandma Snicketts was ready to hand out the Christmas envelopes and bills. She also received from her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren: an oinking plush piggy bank, giant M’nM cookies, certificates to have her hair done once a month, and a glass panel designed by Joe and painted by Carrie and Linnea of Grandma’s favorite poem:

“I think that I shall never see,
A poem lovely as a tree.”

Meanwhile, there wasn’t too much teasing of OLeif’s beard from the masses, given that Jude had also been growing a dense version under gray homeless man hat.
“You two should start a beard-off,” Fernando laughed.
Aunt Corliss brought out a genealogy chart that Esther had found while helping her mom with some cleaning. Aunt Corliss had made it in high school, and it included occupations, physical appearances, and health histories of all the greats and great-uncles, aunts, etc., including labels such as:

• artist
• very wild
• new how to make good deals
• Civil War
• buxom
• ‘5, 2”, 150 lbs., wide hips

…all of which was pretty fascinating, and hilarious.
And in Aunt Corliss’ further ancestral research, she had discovered that one of the greats from the early American days in Massachusetts had been killed by Indians.
Lili, Bristol, and Dad talked about running…
“I don’t understand how women can just continue carrying on these conversations while they run,” said Dad. “One time I was out keeping up a pretty good pace. And I hear these women talking, coming up behind me, coming up at a good clip. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, they must be having a pretty good bike ride, keeping up a nice speed.’ And then they go running past me, just flying, carrying on this full conversation. That made me feel great.”
Lili, who ran four to five times a week with her friend and had run two half-marathons, laughed, and admitted that they had to at least stop talking when they started running uphill.
And Dad discussed project management and dissertations with Bristol, who was later discussing tattoos with OLeif and Joe…
Polly had brought her puppy from Boston, who, being very tiny at first, they had named: Magnus Maximus.
She had also completed the panel review for her dissertation after three and a half years of study.
Meanwhile, Puck and Liselotte were storming up and down half of the carpeted stairs to the landing, giggling about their ‘butt racing’, as Fernando delicately described it, scooching rapidly from one step to the next while sitting, or sometimes sliding on their stomachs.
“This has got to end with someone getting hurt,” said Bristol, warily.
“We should have taken bets on who goes down first,” Fernando laughed.
“Hey, we each just got twenty dollars from Grandma,” Carrie suggested.
And the evening continued onwards with the 33 present members of the Snicketts family.

Back at the house, Dad read the Christmas story to everyone (except Joe who was busy tp-ing Wally’s car with Thor, and the Waffle House with Curly, or some other sort of shenanigans…), accompanied by hymns, done indoors this time.
And Puck was asleep almost immediately by ten o’clock.