Best gift is presence of others
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- December 24, 2023
- 328
As the song sings, the holidays are to us the best time of the year. It’s a time for families to gather together and have good things to eat, presents to exchange and songs to sing.
Well, some of us sing songs. Taller Half prefers to listen. He and I have hosted our family gatherings for several years. A few family members actually stay with us and get to enjoy our well-decorated guest room.
Taller Half and I really have a good time getting things ready for our visitors. Getting things sorted and the guest bedroom spiffed up usually takes a day or two.
A room not often used, like a guest room, does tend to attract “stuff” — things like summer sandals that didn’t get put up for the winter, extra blankets and piles of papers that
need to be sorted and filed. Once that room is free of its “stuff,” we can spruce it up for our company. Last year the guest room got new linen for its bed, and a few more pictures got hung on the walls. That really made our house happy.
Our holiday meals are great. One daughter brings a dessert; another daughter brings her homemade sweet rolls. Our son brings his appetite. Everyone fixes their favorite dish to bring. Each year we have to decide if it’s a turkey or beef year. The past few years,
to keep everyone happy, we have fixed both. It’s really amazing that despite all the food prepared, there are always very few leftovers.
On Christmas morning we wake up to piles of gifts beneath the tree. Our dogs are very excited because they can smell their presents and have been known to crawl under the tree to grab their gifts. One pup has been known to begin to chew on her gift while it’s still wrapped.
One year a child mistakenly opened a gift for Taller Half and was thrilled to find that gift was a rather large hammer. Fortunately, Taller Half rescued his gift before it was put to use on a table top.
Though truly the best time of the year for our family, Taller Half and I are seriously considering becoming visitors rather than hosts. It’s only fair we share all that joy and fun with others. We brought up that sharing idea last year, but oddly enough, our offer to
share the joy and the fun of the holiday season hasn’t been grabbed up yet.