The Magic of Christmas - Crib Notes

The holidays have arrived in a cloud of garland and pine needles, and it’s been operation Ho, Ho, Ho here at our house. Yes, we’ve had to keep a firm handle on our sense of humor this year.

First we discovered that our kittens can’t read the Advent calendar at all. They have each insisted on opening presents, much to the horror of the diligent wrapper who discovered the crime scene under the tree – three separate times.

The kittens also jump on the counter to try to attack the Christmas cookies, thwarted only by the screams of the holiday bakers who had foolishly stepped away for some eggnog.

The aforementioned kittens have now discovered the value of fresh air and sunshine during cookie cooling hours. And we’ve resorted to hiding the presents. All of them. There have even been a few frightening moments involving the kittens, the Christmas tree, and strands of garland.

Next we discovered that some sort of huge power surge must have killed off our rather expansive light collection last year. When we unpacked our 20 boxes of holiday decorations, dozens of strings had every single light on the string filled with smoky looking bulbs. Given our poor luck with inflatables (you may remember that our snowman and penguin ended up in Kerr County in years past), we are a little wanting in the outdoor decoration department.

Then there was the mantle. This summer we took a rather substantial fallen tree from a friend’s house and fashioned it into a massive mantle for our fireplace. A mantle so massive, our stocking hangers are completely useless. Our stockings remain in a pile, waiting for the hooks (which are on the ever growing holiday honey do list).

Still, we are coasting into the final stretch. Most of the cookies have survived the kitten commandoes. The tree is still vertical and only a few ornaments have been mortally wounded in feline attacks. We managed to toss up a few more lights outside and we found one stocking holder that is working out on the massive mantle.

On Christmas morning we will sit among the unwrapped presents, down the surviving cookies, and play holiday carols all day long. And we’ll probably forget we had to re-wrap presents three times and hide them in the recycle bin and secure our tree to the windowsill. And I bet we won’t even notice that some of our icicle lights are out.

That’s part of the magic of Christmas