The Best Things of Christmas

There is something about little ones that make Christmas really come alive. It doesn’t matter if we are shopping for presents for Momma and Daddy, cutting out sugar cookies, or making ornaments for our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Having the babes around makes it all the more magical. Rick and I took advantage of being able to spend time with Auden and Brahm. A couple weeks before Christmas, the four of us spent a weekend together while Sarah and Jesse went on a shopping trip to Anchorage. We did a little shopping ourselves. I remember taking my own little kids into a store at Christmas as a bit of a challenge. Shopping with grandkids is different, it was fun. Of course they wanted everything they could see, and they eyed up everything. Though they still haven’t developed the concept of shopping for someone else, it was interesting to observe their thought processes; something I never made an effort to take pleasure in with my own. Now as Grammy, it really didn’t matter what we ended up with as long as we had fun getting there. Making cookies was always about having fun with the kids. Lord knows I would never take the time to roll out and cut those cookies just for the heck of it. Cutout sugar cookies are always a labor of love. I was most impressed with Auden’s resilience to the task. She worked with me every step of the way, and never once did we have a conflict. She loves to learn, especially when it involves cookie dough. (I wonder if she gets that from me or if the love of cookie dough is one of those universal delights) We had our own cute little Christmas tree this year. Auden and I spent several visits making decorations for it. Finally the weekend before Christmas, she and Grampy hiked out to the front yard and selected our tree. Auden insisted she carry it into the house, where we placed it into our homemade stand and decorated it with the ornaments we had made. The end result was a joy. We even shared it with our landlord on Christmas Eve. Being that we were going to spend the night with the Cress family, Rick brought the tree, some treats, and a couple presents over to Ray’s house while he was gone. It was a great gift, the first Christmas tree he had in many years. Ho, Ho, Ho. Christmas Eve was spent devouring hor ‘devours and visiting with a small group of Sarah and Jesse’s friends. I of course had the most fun frequenting the deck with Auden to check the skies for any sign of Santa. My ears are old, but Auden could hear the bells, and her excitement unleashed the some of my most joyous memories of Christmas past that were filled with eager anticipation and wonder. Before long, we were privy to the dictation of the letter to Santa and the traditional setting out of cookies. Then it was off to find those sugar plums. Brahm loves dancing sugar plums even when it isn’t Christmas Eve. The next hour or so was spent as an elf doing that last minute wrapping. The good news was that I didn’t have to wait up for Santa and was free to go check out some of those sugar plums myself. Christmas morning came soon enough and we were at hand to share in the festivities and the most magical thing of all. Those half-asleep babes stood at the foot the tree that was somehow transformed by the avalanche brightly colored packages. As the colored lights reflected off their sleepy eyes, I saw they were totally dazed and amazed by all the presents set before them. There were so many, they literally had to be prodded to continue opening them. Little did they know, that standing among all these gifts, they were the most wondrous gifts of all!