Countdown

So, the countdown to Christmas has really begun. I try to keep my excitement factor down to a dull roar, but it’s difficult when so much is going on. For those of you who think you know me, and many of your do, you know how much I love having our family home for the holidays. This year, the bedroom reservations began with an email from our daughter-from-another-mother and her husband asking if we could tolerate their shenanigans for a few days. Hard to say no to a woman we’ve known and loved for such a long time. So, for two whole days LOML and I figured it would be just the four of us waiting for Santa, eating pie and playing board games. Since we have three spare rooms, two extra people aren’t a bother at all. And then. Well, our youngest son texted to say he would be arriving on the 19th with his lovely fiancée and her four-year- o l d daughter. They would be staying for seven days. Okay, so five extra people, one of them a little girl, how bad can it be? Three more stockings to fill, but that’s fine, and it also meant two extra cheaters, I mean players, at the board game table. Since our youngest daughter and her wife live in Kingston, we don’t expect they will stay over—wind and weather permitting. A bigger turkey. Another bag of potatoes. Maybe three pies instead of two. A lot more wine now needed, and most definitely I’ll be taking another run at cookie baking.

Could it get more interesting or crowded? I don’t know, and what’s more important, I hope not. As we poured ourselves a wee bit of eggnog, we laughed about how things had morphed from a Christmas holiday for two to a new age group of seven staying over, plus the girls and the doggies arriving for prezzies and Christmas dinner. By mid-week, last week, we were schussing wildly towards our in-house hospitality limit. And then. Well, our oldest son called. He was pining (pun intended) for a great, big family Christmas in Picton. Little did he know how big it was becoming. He, his wife and their five-year-old daughter had just purchased their return tickets from Vancouver. “That’s okay, right Mom? We’ve already got the tickets and didn’t want to spring this on you as a Christmas surprise.” Oh my. What can a gal say? As long as the little girls don’t mind sharing a bit of space—perhaps in the barn. What’s another three people in a house with only two bathrooms, eh? I ask you. I understand it’s just as much work to deal with two for the holidays as it is to have a dozen—plus two huskies—around the table. Right? Tell me I’m right, or hide the damn jelly beans. I feel a binge coming on. LOML and I are pretty sure it couldn’t possibly get any more exciting, since our oldest daughter has one husband, three cats and two little boys (who are capable of anything and everything short of cold fusion) and all live in Burlington, and we figure, “What are the chances they’d decide to throw caution to the wind and head east for a day or four?” At this point, believe me, we aren’t too worried about that group showing up. A long drive to Picton, with “Johnny Quest”, “Benny Bunny” and three cats in tow, is, most definitely, way beyond their limits as older parents. And they are older parents. That’s our mantra this week—”they won’t show up, they won’t show up”.

So, it’s going to be a fairly full house from the 19th of December until the 3rd of January and I’m not even talking about two newly discovered cousins—five doors away, and a community full of school chums who drop-in the minute the kids drop their duffle bags and boots in the front hall. I figure I’ve got just enough time to stock up on a skid (pun intended here, too) of toilet paper, a vat of laundry detergent, an extra gallon of shampoo, dig up another 30 bath towels, extra blankets and goodness knows how much wine, a crate of Tylenol and a box of hair dye. Hair dye? You bet. By the time they all leave my hair will be way beyond white.

If you’re like me, and many of you are, you love to have your family and friends around, not only at Christmas, but whenever the mood strikes. But let me be perfectly honest with you, my children, their spouses, future spouses, their children, their cats and their dogs have a tendency to bring out the best and the worst in me. I’ll cook far too much. I’ll pick-up and tidy far too often. I’ll bake way too many buttery cookies and I’ll make sure Santa stuffs those stockings far too full. I’ll stay up too late. I’ll build five or 600 blanket and quilt tents with the girlies. I’ll lose my glasses, my keys and my mind. I’ll forget to put the Christmas crackers on the table at dinner time, and I’ll only remember the stuffing when dessert is being served.

It’ll be the best Christmas, ever. Uh oh. Is that a Burlington area code on the call display?

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca