By sleeping on the loveseat at Denise’s house, I naturally woke up at some ridiculous hour like 5:30am, got some water, and listened to my new headphones for a while. I dozed back off, and by 8:30 I was greeted with Adam’s smiling face. He was investigating the new presents which had miraculously appeared under the tree. He didn’t want to hear anything about Santa Claus because he is scared of him. So we (mostly I) told him that the penguin and moose that he met at The Beach waterpark holiday fest would be bringing the gifts. He was perfectly fine with that.
It was obviously cute to watch him gingerly rip into this new set of gifts. He usually required some assistance and since I was sitting closest to the tree, I received the request “help open it, Uncle Brad.” Finally, I felt as if I had had more than my share of fun helping him, so I advised him to let Aaron help give him a hand. He liked the Handy Manny talking toolbox that he received so well that for a while he didn’t want to open the last big gift: the Wonderpets skateboard thing…or flyboat….or whatever that is. Everyone really enjoyed watching Adam’s excited and unskilled behavior at getting his gifts opened up. Well, except for Grandpa, who chose to sleep in.
Adam surveys the gifts that Santa…er…the penguin and moose brought him
He begins to drag out the loot
Denise helps him with the first gift, a bat and ball set
Uncle Brad then assists. My hair was particularly disastrous on this morning. Oh well, it’s not like this trainwreck mess will be spread all over the internet or anything…
Aaron helps out Adam with another gift. This kid really gets around.
Adam is anxious for his Mom to figure out how to get the blasted thing out of the box
I think we heard the Handy Manny toolbox tune at least 73 times that day
Adam finally rips open the final gift with ‘Neno’s’ assistance
Now somebody better figure out how to get this Wonderpets thing out of the box
All the while Ashleigh looks on from under Adam’s new Diego blanket
Mom and Denise gather every sharp or pointy object in the house in the concentrated effort to get the boxes open before Adam goes berserk
I simply mellow out with one of Adam’s new books
The presents are all open and what does Adam choose to do? Suck on his ‘Diego juice’ and cuddle his good old ‘Auggie’
I think Adam was just on the verge of understanding what was going on with the presents, although I feared that when he woke up from his nap later that afternoon, he might expect more gifts. Afterall, it seemed that gift opening had followed his last three wake-ups (Denise and Aaron had had Aaron’s family over on Christmas Eve morning before we got there).
We enjoyed a nice breakfast comprised of some leftovers from the day before (love that French Toast casserole, but had to bypass the broccoli egg casserole – there’s broccoli in that, for cripes sakes!), and some fresh meat: sausage and ham. It all hit the spot.
Ashleigh took off for home at about 9:45 to meet up with her Mom and Creed so they could visit her Big Daddy and Nana. In the secular world, we refer to those folks as her grandparents. We then talked Adam into watching the DVD of Cars. At first he was happy to concede his video of Shrek 2, and even stated that he wanted to “watch Cars with Uncle Brad.” So he cuddled up on my lap for a while under his new Diego blanket, but soon lost interest in the movie and began playing with his Wonderpets and Handy Manny toys, both which made a lot of noise. It didn’t seem to matter to Grandpa who slept through all of it. I soon joined him in slumber as I had missed what was going on in the movie, so I laid down on the floor and dozed off.
Grandpa enjoys an afternoon screening of Cars
That afternoon we had a nice lunch of ham and turkey sandwiches. Leftover Christmas meat is the best meat in the world. And on sandwiches with swiss cheese, they are even better. For some reason I was still exhausted, but decided to go ahead and drive home after Adam went down for his afternoon nap around 1:30. I drove Grandpa back to his apartment and made it back to my place by about 3:30. I really had nothing to do, so I decided to take it easy and enjoy the rest of the day on my terms: on the couch, finishing up my DVDs of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
It felt very unusual to be home alone on Christmas day. Ashleigh came home at around 6:30pm and Christi and Creed briefly came in to say hello. But an hour later, Derek and Ashleigh were on their way to Derek’s family event. I thought about napping, but never did. Nor did I ever jump in the shower. I was going to that morning at Denise’s house, but when I was confronted with a bathtub full of Adam’s toys, I decided to wait until I got home. But when I got home, I didn’t see much of a reason since I wasn’t going anywhere. I settled for the ultimate lazy Christmas – shower and shaving free!
At about 9:30pm that night, Jackie stopped over with Grace. They had planned to come over earlier, but she got tied up with her family’s Christmas dinner at her Mom’s house. It had been almost exactly three months since I had seen them. I had two Christmas gifts for Grace: a Tom and Jerry DVD set and the first season of Ren and Stimpy. These were DVDs that she constantly requested to watch when she was at my house.
Jackie brings Grace over to get some more presents
I asked Grace what Santa Claus brought for her that morning and she said “everything”
It was very nice to visit with them for about an hour. Grace hadn’t changed one bit and wanted her chocolate milk and to go ‘up the stairs’ to watch her new videos! Instead, we watched a few of the Tom and Jerry cartoons in the living room and Jackie and I chatted about her new job, etc. – and they headed out. I went to bad shortly afterward and began watching the next sitcom series on my list: Wings. I only stayed awake for one episode and then drifted off, leaving behind another Christmas Day – a very unique one that was vastly different than any other I had ever spent.
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