A Very Verbose Verbal Scrapbook

Well, the holidays came and went...

Mirth was all around me...

Laughter filled the air...

And went completely undocumented!

We had such a great Christmas time, but in all the chaos and glee, I never brought out the camera. So I will have to create a mental picture of our holidays (I got this idea from Diana, who apparently had the same problem I did in not thinking to photograph any of the goings-on... However, she has pregnant brain, and I do not have such an excuse.)

Beware! You may need to take a bathroom break somewhere in the middle here... Your kids may be in college by the time you read through all of my yammering on. This post is really not for the faint of heart: Only the truly devoted among you.
Picture #1: December 24, A Quiet Christmas Eve Involving Crabs, Luke Skywalker, and Anti-Semitic Statements
The pictures of this night would include a delicious crab dinner, which became a tradition a few years ago, when we found that local Dungeness Crab was a decidedly great alternative to the turkey and ham that we had eaten so recently at Thanksgiving. We all sat about the table, crunching our little crustaceans while making Yummy noises intermittently.

Later, the nativity was read from the scriptures, where we laid out the wooden figures representing the major "characters" in the story. One of the wisemen was missing from the set, however, and a Luke Skywalker action figure was the understudy for a time, until it was decided that his bare chested attire was far too risque for the Baby Jesus... So we only had the wisemen that brought the gold and frankincense. "You can keep the myrrh."

After that, we went looking for Christmas lights in the fancy neighborhood that decorated so festively for Halloween, but found it to be quite dark. Nathan's explanation? "There must be a lot of Jewish people in this neighborhood." So, we headed back to the land of Gentiles, looking for some good ol' WASP festiveness and ended up at the L.A. temple to take in the sights there. When we came back home, we watched the Polar Express and drank our traditional recipe for Royal Hot Chocolate at the appropriate part of the movie. By then, it was nearing midnight, so "Santa's helpers" got to take turns assisting in the Christmas Eve duties: Elf-Hayden stuffed the stockings, and Elf-Nathan placed the loot under the tree... And neither of them was a cotton-headed Ninnymuggins.

Picture #2: December 25, Christmas Day with Elephants and Butt Snipers and Torture Pudding.
The boys wake up as soon as the sun peaks out, raid their stockings as quietly as two little elephants can be... At least they sound like elephants at 6:30 am. They graciously enjoyed the limited number of presents under tree as though they were winners of the jackpot at Cesar's Palace. Hayden shot everybody in the butt with his Nerf rifle at least once throughout the day. That evening, we were joined by my sister and her family, my Mom and Chuck, and my cousin Scott and his family. Much more delicious food was consumed in mass quantities (including Yorkshire pudding...or "Torture Pudding" as per the boys... that dripped on the bottom of the stove and filled the apartment with smoke), and we ended the evening by singing Christmas carols, which Caleb seemed okay with as long as they didn't sound sad. Silent Night was apparently much too much for him, but Jingle Bells was A-Okay.

Picture #3: December 27, Wayne's Family's Ginormous Gathering of Relatives We Haven't Seen in a Long Time.
We travelled to Ramona in San Diego County for our first glimpse of the Holgersons from North Carolina, and the Sortors from Utah. This is no small feat, as the Holgerson Horde consists of eight people which DROVE all the way across the country: Mom (Wayne's sister Gina), Dad (Sanders), and their six children... All six of which have undergone major growth spurts of late, and all of whom LOVE to point out how short our family is. We prepped the boys, warning them that the cousins loved to tease, and to be prepared to become the butt of a number of short jokes. Lo and behold, within 2 seconds (I am SOOOOO not exaggerating!) of entering Aunt Rita and Uncle Buck's home, four of the kids blurted out such comments at MY expense. The boys went unscathed, but I counted about 67 other related comments about my diminutive size throughout the evening. Despite the festivities including over 40 people (20-something kids under the age of sixteen), it was absolutely, positively WONDERFUL to get everyone in the same room.

Picture #4: December 28, Murder at Angie's House and the Fluoride Incident of '08
For this event, I am almost glad there is no photographic evidence. It is amazing to me how a group of Wayne and I, his cousin Kelly and Carlton, and his squeaky-clean Mormon sisters and their spouses can start out an evening so well behaved, and watch it degenerate into something the FCC might ban from television. Let's just say, no protected class went untouched in our very un-P.C.-humor, Chubby's dance would have made a porn-star blush... and all the while Lynne kept 12 kids at bay in the party room across the street.

When the children returned, and the evening wound down, I offered to give Brooklyn a fluoride varnish treatment. "Mmmmm. Cherry flavored," I professed as I demonstrated on myself. Now this is the part where I learned why so many people choose not to treat family in their dental practices, as the fun and games quickly devolved into a screaming tantrum of epic proportions, and I watched as my sweet little niece tried to make herself throw up once the varnish had been applied. As Andy patiently put her to bed, he asked her if she understood what the "tooth vitamins were meant to do. "It KILLS you!" was her anguished response. And, as her concerned little sister offered a bedtime prayer on her behalf, Avery said, "...and please bless Brookie that her teeth won't fall out tonight." Thankfully, nobody died, and all her teeth were still there in the morning, and I even got a kiss from the fully fluoridated niece that loathed my very existence the night before.

Picture # I don't know. I've lost count...Hayden Aids in Burglarizing His First House:
Are you really still there?!? This is taking a lot longer than I thought... Good on you if you are still reading this.

Rather than drive back to L.A. county each night after each successive family gathering, we were graciously put up by Angie's next door neighbors, who had allowed us to stay in their vacant home while they were vacationing in New York. Our only warning issued by Angie: "Just don't lock the front door, as they don't have a key to open it. ONLY lock the security screen!" Easy enough? Well, it seems in my haste to pack up and urgently return that morning so I could take any emergency dental calls that could occur... Or maybe I was just a little too eager to chow on Angie's cinnamon rolls for breakfast... But I apparently slammed the front door a little too hard. The doorknob lock was such that if jostled even slightly, would keep the door locked... and again: THERE WAS NO KEY... And my purse was inside.

Thankfully, Andy has super long monkey arms, and was able to reach up through a 6-inch cat door to unlock the garage door on the side of the house, and then Hayden was able to crawl into the house through a larger dog-sized door through the laundry room to retrieve my purse. Who ever said crime doesn't pay?

Last Picture, I PROMISE! and I don't even remember what day of the week it was: Girly Day With Sparkly Vampires and The Reason I Finally Broke Down to Read the Twilight Books (see Nathan's opinion of my literary choices here)
Gina, Kelly, and I finally got a chance to do what we do best: Gossip, giggle, talk incessantly, eat, watch kissing movies, and muse about how it's so much fun to be best friends with family. It's been a long time since I've been able to enjoy estrogen, and this time we did it in style! We went to Beverly Hills to watch Twilight, couldn't find the theater, ate at Cheesecake Factory (which we learned was akin to McDonald's in an area as posh as Beverly Drive) where Kelly almost broke her foot and spent her entire meal getting groped by a touchy-feely waiter who was trying to flirt to get a better tip, saw Norm McDonald of SNL fame (well, Kelly did... I was distracted by sparkly things in the windows), drove back to my place, watched a kissing movie, went to another theater I knew how to find to watch another kissing movie with sparkly vampires, and went our separate ways for who-knows-how-long-until-we-all-get-together-again.

THE END

Well, hang on... I should add that New Year's was totally uneventful, and consisted of Wayne and I rolling over in bed at 11:59 as the drunk people at a nearby nightclub counted down raucously... and then promptly rolling back over and falling asleep soundly.

We're quite the party animals.