I thought I had another post explaining the beliefs Mrs. Austin holds and in which she is raising the children, but I don’t. I’ll let Wikipedia do my work for me.
What came up this year, as it has the past few years, is when to celebrate this winter festival. I call it Christmas, Mrs. A calls it Yule. However, her beliefs in this are stronger than mine so she gets last say and the say in how to portray it to the kids.
I keep having problems trying to wrap my brain around it. You open presents Christmas morning, not on the 22nd. What about all those songs with the word Christmas in it? I have to replace vocabulary and adjust a few dates with this one.
But I will say that now I can appreciate what Jewish/Christian couples go through every year until they can come up with a compromise. Our compromise is we celebrate Yule on the 22nd with our family and then Christmas with her or my parents, depending on where we are. And to be honest, and extraordinarily shallow, anymore the holiday is about presents to me. Yes it’s materialistic and sad, but I really only have faith in myself, family and friends. To exchange gifts with them is the only reason I need to have a celebration. If you want to go to mass or circle to receive the body of Christ or stand a vigil to make sure the sun rises again, that’s your thing. Me? I’m jumping out of bed with my kids to see if Santa has eaten the cookies and left us stuff.
But I won’t go any farther into that. I don’t want to start a flame war over what amounts to just another day. At most I get a day off of work, and that is reason enough to have a party.
In the midst of all the reverie that was Christmas at Casa de Conroe, we were visited by Santa on a Jet Ski. That’s right all you Northerners, the great winter elf himself graced our driveways on a Kawasaki. I remember seeing this last year and though, “What an odd, bassackward, Hicksville thing to do. But guess what, it’s Conroe, it’s not Houston. See, in Houston they pull Santa on a giant float that symbolizes Suburban Sprawl. When you have a smaller city by a lake, you pull Chris Cringle on a jet ski.
It’s not the city that did it either. No, that’d be down right O-fficial. This was just some palooka from down the block.
But oh the kids they come a’ runnin’. Older kids, smallish kids, kids with hardly any clothes on. Luckily the Casa is close to the corner so we could see him first and take some photos. A must snapshot for anyone seeking Americana and traditions of the south. We went inside and fried up some pickles.
Then Mrs. A went and broke her foot. Jumping off the trailer with the Santa Ski, she partially fractured the pinkie toe bone high up in her foot. She gimped around in pained for a couple of days, then yesterday went to the doctor to get it looked at. So now she’s wearing a little boot and is supposed to stay off of it. Not likely but that’s what the doctor said.
I hope you all have a good holiday. I hope Santa is good to you, or that you find peace in whatever traditions you celebrate. I’m off to play Half Life on my new flat panel monitor, so at this point I’ve lost the ability to care about the outside world.
Have some pictures.
”I’m absolutely stuffed. I couldn’t eat another bite.”
Was that me? Oh that was awful, I’m so sorry.
Do you like my hat? Yes I do. I like your party hat!
He’s developed an eating problem, he sleeps through it.
Ah, Texas. Where else could you find a giant illuminated snowman.
I’m raising her right. Don’t believe the lies.
No words.
Again, no words.
Dear Santa, for Christmas I’d like to not break my foot. Oh crap, too late.
I don’t think it’s narcolepsy. Maybe he just really likes socks.
Happy Holidays
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