Worst Apocalypse Ever!

Dearest Readers,

My apologies for being late on writing my weekly post.  I, like others I know, was waiting to see if the predictions of the end of the world would come to pass and as we are still here...  This will go down (at least in my limited history) as the WORST APOCALYPSE EVER!  So now, there is a rush to get ready for the Holiday Season as well as spending time with family.  Yes, I am currently visiting with family, thus am on vacation, so I don't have any clue what day of the week it is.  I, along with my parents, even watched the movie 2012 to see how the end of the world was going to come to pass and I waited for the ground to crack open or the tsunami to wash us away but none of that happened.

No, I am not writing from the airport this year [so I can't use that as an excuse not to write =) ] because surprisingly all of my flights were 100% on time and I even had a really tight connection at one of the airports and I still made my flight!  Yes, I am sure that by writing this I have called forth a challenge to the travel gods and they will make it their personal mission to make my life miserable in my attempt to fly back at the end of my visit but I still have a bit of time before I have to worry about that...  I'll worry about that tomorrow.  Probably not since tomorrow there will be a house full of family and as I've written before, with my family that means a whole lot of crazy fun will be going on as well.  I, for one, can't wait!

As I am sitting at the computer listening to the fun Christmas music Dad has playing and smelling the wonderfully sinful things that Mom is baking my mind drifts to thoughts of Christmas past when we were growing up.  The kids in my family would draw names as who we would buy gifts for and it seemed to become a competition (as most things did between my siblings and I) as to who could buy the silliest gift for who we picked.  Mom and Dad would take us shopping and then became the torment to see who could keep what was purchased a secret until Christmas Eve.  Mom and Dad realized that we would be unable to last until Christmas so after going to Christmas Eve church service, we were allowed to exchange gifts with one another.  I don't think I'll forget the year that my one brother unwrapped each and every piece of wrapped coal from the other brother in the hopes he would find something that wasn't coal in the box.

On Christmas Day, my siblings and I would attempt to sneak downstairs because we knew Mom and Dad had told us they wouldn't get up unless there was fresh coffee made.  We would fight over who got to do what job in order to prepare the precious liquid that would coax Mom and Dad out of bed way earlier than they would have liked.  We always tried our best to not spill water all over the place and to not get coffee grounds everywhere (including in the coffee pot itself) but it always seemed to happen anyway.  We would then argue over who Mom and Dad would get less mad at if they were the one to knock on their bedroom door to announce that their coffee was made.  Obviously my sister and I always tried to convince one of the boys to do the unwanted job and it usually fell to the youngest boy as he was still "cute enough not to kill."  So he would wonder how he got selected (we saw it as natural selection as it's finest) as he climbed the stairs to his doom to knock on the door at the end of the hall.  Mom and Dad would begrudgingly wake up with the promise that coffee was indeed waiting for them (even though it was often just starting to come through the coffee machine and when they did drink it, it was strong enough to "put hair on their chest" as Dad would say) and they would come downstairs.

At that point, as coffee was poured into cups, the youngest (who survived his trip upstairs to what he thought was his doom -- maybe that had something to do with what would later become his catch phrase of "I'm gonna die!" came from... hmm....) had already been scouring under the tree to find all of the gifts with his name on them, placing them in a pile and determining the order in which he was going to open EVERYTHING!  We usually got to go through our stockings as Mom and Dad drank their first cup of coffee in an effort to wake up and it kept the youngest from getting too crazy over having to wait forever to see what was hiding inside the colorfully wrapped gifts.  When Mom and Dad finished their first cup, we took turns opening one gift at a time and creating a mountain of wrapping paper we would take turns jumping in later (that's what happens when you live someplace where you can rake a pile of leaves or create a mountain of snow -- you learn to jump/play in piles of anything).

Now that we're all older, two of the four of us have children of our own, it's fun for me to see that same light and joy of Christmas in the eyes of my nephews (granted two of them are too little to understand what in the world is going on but the other one gets the same excitement that I remember my youngest brother having).  We'll see how early he tries to wake his parents up tomorrow...  =)  I'm sure I'll hear all about it when he comes over tomorrow afternoon and have even more gifts to open.

Well, since the world didn't end, I probably have some other things around here that I could be helping with since everyone will be over here at some point tomorrow.  It is my hope to all of you that if you can't spend time with your loved ones that you are able to enjoy memories of Christmas days that you have enjoyed with them in the past.  I wish you all a very Merry Christmas full of love, laughter and the true meaning of the Christmas story!

Love,
Gypsy  =)