I Got Your Christmas Letter Right Here (HOL75)

House of Laughter 75

Merry Christmas! It will be eleven months until I have to hear the Amy Grant Christmas C.D. at work, or that maudlin Christmas Shoe song on the radio again! Rejoice all creatures in heaven and on Earth! (Seriously does anyone actually like that song?)

Like everyone else, we have been busy the last few weeks. We've had work parties, Church parties, School Parties, a visit from Gammy and G-Daddy where we visited Santa's Castle, along with the normal busyness of life. Unlike most, we have also been preparing to sell our house. (I wasn’t allowed to blog about it until the deed was done, and it finally closed last Friday.) To celebrate, we took a quick trip to Myrtle Beach for the weekend.

We visited Ripley’s Aquarium Saturday. Isaac was fascinated by the sharks and sea turtle. For some reason, he was also obsessed with a tank featuring clownfish and regal blue tangs (He never really explained why.) I was really proud when we walked into a small education room featuring what I thought was an aquarium full of only seaweed, and he immediately correctly identified that it in fact was a display of “Seahorses!”

When we came to the ray tank, Isaac decided it was time to growl at anything that swam by. Isaac and I petted the rays and baby hammerhead shark, while Nancy kept a safe distance from the tank. (She remembered what happened to Steve Irwin and wasn’t taking any chances.)

Our hotel featured a small indoor water park with a couple of slides, kiddie pool and a lazy river. Isaac found a raft shaped like a car that he “Drove” around the lazy river race track about 700 times.

Sunday morning, we went to the “House of Blues Sunday Morning Gospel Brunch.” There was a three piece gospel band playing old time hymns and the kitchen door was wide open with a buffet of great food inside. The Banana Bread Pudding was the clear winner at our table. The band played “Do Lord”, “I’ll Fly Away”, and “Give Me That Old Time Religion”. Isaac was being ugly to Nancy when the band began “This Little Light of Mine.” The singer walked around the tables as he sang, so I used that to scare Isaac into behaving.

“Isaac, that man saw you being ugly to your mom, and he is coming over to talk to you.”

Isaac looked at me incredulously as the man came towards out table.

“Isaac you made him mad by being ugly to your mom in his restaurant.”

The man was singing loudly and heading toward our table. Isaac ran over to me and climbed up on my lap, now seriously concerned. Nancy was smirking and clapping along as the man came right up to our table. Isaac was terrified, but being very quiet. The man stopped at our table and said, “Now this big guy here, he acts like he is babysitting, but he aint clapping, and if you aint clapping, that means you singing. What’s your name? Where you from?”

I told him, and then he gave me the mike and I belted out my best version of “This Little Light of Mine” to a receptive audience. It was the highlight of the trip for me. Isaac was very good for the rest of the day.

We left “House of Blues” with full bellies. Isaac took an extra biscuit with him and slowly ate it for the next hour, while pinching off little bits to feed to birds and fish. Nancy bought him a small stuffed tiger that he named “Biscuit Tiger”. Biscuit Tiger has a feature that most stuffed animals lack, small magnets in his paws and forehead that let him play “Peek a Boo”. For the rest of the day we heard “Where’s Biscuit Tiger?.....There he is!” Every few minutes. This is why no one you know with children is sane.

We drove back on Christmas Eve and went to church. Isaac was well behaved through the service. At the end of the Service, we stood in a circle around the inside of the church and sang “Silent Night”, and “Joy to the World” as we lit candles. That is the moment when Christmas is real to me. Isaac wanted to sing Happy Birthday, and so after everyone else sang, he and I sang Happy Birthday as well.

Santa came last night and ate the cookies we left out for him and left some presents for Isaac, Nancy and I. My folks gave him a camera, and when he learns to use it I will post some of the pictures here for you.

One of the traditions at our house is that baby Jesus is not placed in our nativity until Christmas Eve night. This morning at breakfast, Isaac commented “There’s Baby Jesus!” when he saw the new addition at the crèche.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and be sure to enjoy Boxing Day and have a Kwazy Kwanzaa!

Peace on Earth, Good will to all people.
Big Matt

P.S. Thanks for all of the Christmas cards! We haven’t managed to send any, so it’s not that we forgot you, we forgot everyone. Consider this our boring ass Christmas letter!