While we were very excited to have both the “kids” home for Christmas, it was not without some trepidation that we faced having four of us in our small house for two and a half weeks. Frank and I did lots of prep work getting ready for their arrival and once here they did their typical college student thing: they slept. A lot. Like more that I would think was possible. But what do I know? I haven’t been able to sleep past 8:30 am since they were born.
So we settled into something that resembled a family pattern. The big difference this Christmas is that they were coming “home” to a place where they don’t live and they don’t know anyone. If we were still in NoVA, we would never see them because they would either be asleep or out with their friends. Now their choice was to be asleep or hangout out with family. Not quite the same thing.
But so far we are making things work. Except for those morning where all four of us need to shower at roughly the same time (and our little water heater just can’t keep up), we are doing just fine. Yes they sleep a lot but they also run errands for us, help keep the house tidy and generally try to be pleasant and helpful. And it is a plus that we actually kinda like each other. I spent the better part of the week before Christmas laid out with a nasty sinus infection and a touch of bronchitis so I wasn’t a ton of laughs to be around. But that meant that they got some shopping done, learned their way around KC (they *love* Westport) and spend some time with dad.
Christmas itself was pretty quiet: a fabulous Christmas eve dinner followed by 11pm service at our new St. Andrews. This one is a little more high church than the one we attended in Virginia – we joked about the smells and bells but there was incense galore on Christmas eve. The service was lovely and for the final carol of Silent Night, everyone had a candle that was lit during communion and the lights were dimmed for a candlelight sing. It was really lovely. Then home for cake, champagne and presents. We were very clear that this year there would be few actual “things” for Christmas since both of them had to pack everything to take home on a plane and we pretty much stuck to that. Their big gift from us was hotel rooms and spending money for the two of them to spend a few days together in Burlington and Montreal before coming to KC. I understand it was a much enjoyed an appreciated gift. And that’s where they found my awesome Christmas gift:
And they now have more room in their cases since this is staying right here in KC! Hopefully they won’t need to check a second bag to go home.
Partly because I wasn’t feeling well and party because we put the “fun” in dysfunctional, we spent much of the holiday so far working our way through 80’s movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Strange Brew, Princess Bride, …. We have way too many such DVDs. We even borrowed some Jewish “traditions” and got some Chinese takeout on Boxing Day to have with our 80s adventure movies: the first two Terminator films.
Yes, I know that T2 came out in the 90s but it has some classic lines that they needed to see in context to make sure that their cultural education was complete.
And so we are through the first 10 days and have about a week left to go. We’ve eaten, drank, joked, laughed, Yahtzeed and Scrabbled our way through a wonderful first half of the visit. We’ve managed to take in some of the KC sites as well. But that will have to be another post…. part 2….