It has taken me awhile to get around to wrapping up the year.
Christmas Day was a little different this year. Our family gathering is small to begin with--just us, Aaron, Christa and four grandkids. This year, Ella was sick and Christa had to stay home with her. We really missed them.
One of the first things that happened when the rest of the family came over in mid afternoon was that Gabe wanted to show us the gift Ella had given him. It was something that looked like a ball, with a launcher. It shot up in the air, and then a parachute opened up. It worked great the first time. And then it got stuck in the magnolia tree in the front of the house. Not a problem, said Mark, Aaron, Levi and Gabe. We will just throw something up and knock it out of the tree.
The first thing that was thrown up in the tree was a football. It got stuck. They started gathering other things to toss up in the tree, confident that each one would knock the other things down. In turn, each thing they tossed up into the tree also got stuck. Charlotte and I were quite amused.
Things caught in the tree...
They ended up getting a 10-foot ladder, but Aaron couldn't quite reach it. So they got two painting pole extensions and screwed them together. Still not long enough.
They ended up taping a third extension rod and were able to get everything down.By then it was time for a little snack. It's kind of hard to see, but I tried to spell the word "JOY" with the cheese and the hummus in the middle. We opened up stocking stuffers. Normally just the kids have something in their socks, not much--we don't do a lot for Christmas. They always have Bombas socks, and this year I bought some unusual candy from a store at the coast.Aaron and Christa got Mark and me a t-shirt that says grUber. We always joke that we run a nonprofit business--Grandpa and Grandma Uber--driving grandkids to and from places they need to be--a highly unprofitable business in terms of money but highly profitable in terms of time spent with them. Now that Charlotte has her license, we will be losing some of our driving gigs and we are both sorry about that.
And there you have it: Christmas 2022.