Christmas no longer means waking up while it’s still dark in order to be dressed by the time the kidlets start bouncing off the walls. Now it means convincing our thirteen-year-old that 8:oo is a perfectly reasonable time to be dressed and ready to go. Ah, how times change! Another change to our Christmas celebration is the fact that we have a shared document where all of us can list gift suggestions to ease that whole dilemma of “What in the world do I get for [insert name here]?” That leads to lots of collaborative conversations to make sure we don’t all choose the same gifts. When gifts are not selected from the list, the whole gift giving bit has kind of turned into a competition to see who can make the recipient laugh the hardest.
We had some good contenders for the biggest laughs this year. Malia gave Kevin a blanket that looks just like a giant tortilla since tortillas are one of his basic food groups. When I saw it on Amazon, I laughed out loud. And when I showed it to Daniel and Nathan and asked for their opinions, they laughed out loud too. Basically, Kevin was the only one who didn’t know about the big burrito blanket. Another laughable gift was a Lego camera. It wasn’t laughable in and of itself, but it was laughable because Kevin picked it out for Matthew and Matthew picked it out for Kevin. All unbeknownst to everyone.
These giggles aside, this year Malia was definitely the winner. Several months ago, she saw a T-shirt that reminded her of Daniel. She asked me to order it and when I saw it, I broke into hysterical laughter. We kept the whole thing under wraps for the entertainment value on Christmas morning, and it was totally worth the secret keeping.
In order to understand the hilarious nature of this gift, I have to tell you a story. It is one of those stories that has become deeply embedded in our family lore as evidenced by the fact that it happened long before Malia was ever born. Daniel has always been a scientifically minded child. When he graduated from preschool, part of the program was each child telling everyone what he or she wanted to be when they grew up. Daniel wanted to be a paleontologist. The folks sitting behind us quietly commented that he was clearly coached in order to give such a response as most kids wanted to be firefighters, or policemen, or moms, but honestly, it was all him. He has always been fascinated by the many wonders of the world, wanted to know how everything works, etc. As such, at a very young age, he would sit and watch documentaries with me. I’ve been fascinated by archaeology since my childhood, probably due to my parents’ subscription to the National Geographic Magazine when I was young, so I have a tendency to enjoy documentaries that focus on archeology related topics.
Now let’s shift gears for a minute. When Daniel was tiny, he had horrible nightmares. I had terrible nightmares as a child as well and I’ve read that it is something that can be inherited, so it was not all that surprising. When he was super tiny, I would hear him crying and go to him, but as he got a little older, he would just get up and come wake me. One of the things I always did was ask him what he dreamed about. That way, I could help talk him through it and try to help his extremely logical little mind make sense of it all.
Now back to the documentaries. When Daniel was five or six, I happened across a documentary about Pompeii. It was very fascinating and Daniel, who of course watched it with me, was also fascinated. Are you beginning to see a problem here? Now, with the hindsight of a more experienced mother, I can see that I was just setting myself up for issues. But at the time, it never occurred to me that my extremely intelligent and logical child was gleaning anything more than knowledge. But, of course, the magnitude of my ineptitude as a mother became clear to me later that night. I didn’t hear the bedroom door open, and I didn’t hear Daniel creep in. But at some point, I became conscious enough to realize that someone was breathing next to me and I woke up. It was clearly a nightmare scenario, something I had become accustomed to. But when I asked Daniel what he dreamt about, his thready, terrified whisper was one word only: “Vesuuviuusssss!!”
Jumping back to this Christmas, the T-shirt Malia selected for Daniel said the following:
“The floor is lava.”
-Everyone
Pompeii, 79 A.D.
Daniel laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair. None of the other of my menfolk had any idea what was happening until he calmed down enough to flip the shirt around for general viewing. And then there were more guffaws. Malia was most definitely the winner of this year’s Christmas laughter award!
Other gifts given were funny T-shirts (although none were as funny as the Pompei shirt) and a variety of books, games, socks, and rubber ducks. This year’s ducks light up, which was fun. Daniel received a beautiful edition of one of his favorite books from Tawni, his girlfriend. Nathan, who was in need, got a new wallet, Scooby Do themed, of course. Malia has spent the past several months drawing superheroes and gifted each of her brothers with a framed pencil sketch of their favorite superhero. She got an earring organizer and while it is cute, I’m actually not at all certain she will use it. She is kind of a drop things on the floor or dresser as she walks in her bedroom door kind of a girl, but we’ll see. I got a small sculpture of the empty tomb to add to my collection of reminders of the Savior that sit on my piano. And Matthew gave me a butane torch, which has been on my wish list ever since Malia made crème brulee at a young women activity months ago. But since he is not a legal adult, the folks at Home Depot wouldn’t sell him the butane to go with it. 😂
Christmas morning may not hold all the magic and wonder that it did when my kids were small, but I can honestly say that we have just as much fun. I always love how much thought goes into their gift giving, even if the main motivation is to create laughter, which it usually does. But laughter and jokes and games and time together equals joy for us. And there was much joy today.
