Sunday, December 14, 1997...Shopping & Wrapping

Last week a friend of ours gave the little girls an early Christmas present--a big Christmas activity book. They promptly used one of the book’s recipes to make cookies with some animal cookie cutters of Hannah’s, and iced them with colored, almond-flavored frosting. On the other side of the table sat Caleb, painting with tempera paints. By the time the cookies and the paintings were done, Caleb’s face and shirt looked every bit as fancy as the girls’ cookies.

Next, they followed the directions for making a large card for Lawrence for his birthday. It had a dozen little doors on it which opened to reveal such things as a cat, a Christmas tree, a present, a teddy bear, etc.

Joseph won the geography bee at school, receiving a medal and a certificate for his efforts. He has taken a written test to determine if he is eligible for the state contest.

Victoria is really scooting herself along now, using elbows, toes, and fingers; and she often goes several paces on hands and knees before collapsing. The Christmas tree intrigues her, and she points excitedly at the star.

“Staw!” she exclaims.

Wednesday we went to Wal-Mart and got some presents for my mother to give the children. It’s gotten to be a tradition, I think--every year they look forward to new pajamas or nightgowns from Grandma Swiney. I got printed flannel pajamas for Keith and Teddy, knit pajamas with ‘Green Bay Packers’ on the front for Joseph, a sleeper for Caleb with a big Dalmation on the front and separate ‘paw’ footies, soft plaid ruffly nightgowns for Hester and Lydia, Lydia’s with teddy bears printed on it, and sweatshirt-type nightgowns for Hannah and Dorcas. On the front are Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet appliques. Dorcas’ says, ‘You make me feel cuddly.’ Hannah’s says, ‘You’re All Heart.’ For Victoria, who has enough sleepers, I got a pink sweater with an attached vest. There are furry white kittens appliqued on both side fronts of the sweater, and a bigger kitten in the middle front of the vest. It’s so cute.

Mama was pleased with all the purchases.

Shortly after arriving home, we heard on our scanner that somebody had hit a deer, so we decided to try our luck at getting this one. And we got it. It was a very small one, a ‘button’ buck. We wound up with one rump roast. We had it for supper the next night, and it was very good. I, however, had a bad case of Turned Stomach from the knowledge of the circumstances of said roast; so, after a couple of bites, I unobtrusively slid the rest of my piece onto the plates beside me.

After sending the children off to bed Wednesday night, Larry helped me carry the four boxes of Christmas notebooks from the church music room into the school library, where I spread them out all over the tables so I could put the ‘inserts’ in them--the papers telling the children whose poem or verses comes when, and what song goes where. Larry then went off to the shop to paint a vehicle…without telling me he’d locked the school doors from the outside. I started the copier going, then decided I had just enough time to run home and get my industrial-strength three-hole paper punch and some tape.

Leaving the keys on a table, I trotted out the door. It swung shut gently behind me.

And then I heard that ominous ‘click’---as it locked itself.

Now what would I do? I was locked out. It was 1:30 A.M. All the other people who have keys were sound asleep. All the doors have dead bolts. The windows have special tamper-resistant locks. And our other set of keys had been lost for a millennium or more.

I debated creeping into my mother’s house to get her keys, but I was afraid she’d wake up, hear me, and have a heart attack or something. I hunted through all the coat pockets for the second set of keys. Nothing.

I called Larry, who came home from the shop to help me look for them, or hunt for an unlocked window. Finally, some forty minutes later, Larry found them: they were in an old coat of Teddy’s which was hanging on a peg in the garage.

So, after a lengthy delay, I was back in business. Larry finished painting long before I finished with the inserts, so he came to the school, made a pillow of his coat, stretched out on the carpet, and went sound asleep. I got done shortly after 6:00 A.M. We put the notebooks away and rushed home before some early-arriving teacher found us still there.

Whew! I tell you, it takes some mighty fast sleeping to get enough, after using up that much of the night.

Thursday evening Barbara (Lawrence’s daughter) invited us to her house, along with Kenny and Annette and their family, for Lawrence’s birthday. Barbara has a fluffy Siamese kitten with which the children were playing. You should’ve heard Victoria laugh when that kitten pounced on a string with a bell on the end of it, and leaped high to snatch it out of the air.

Hannah is now crocheting a white/pastel vest for Hester for Easter. Dorcas finished the little girls’ collars and started a cadet blue/mauve afghan for her teacher. I finished Lydia’s dress and wrote several music pieces. Teddy is going on famously with his new violin; he plays mostly by ear, and he’s very good at it.

I typed up the program, and it is ready to print onto the pretty program papers we pass out to the audience. Bookwork took up a good part of one day, and it likely will tomorrow, too.

Another dozen presents are wrapped, and I’ve only got about a dozen more to go. When each of nine children give gifts to about a dozen children their age, and Larry and I give gifts to each of our friends, and I give each of the children in Jr. Choir a present, and then we add in all the relatives, that constitutes a lengthy list! But it’s fun.

Many gifts are well under $1, which is how we manage to include so many people. I ordered click-pencils, lead refills, and retractable ‘Uni-Gel’ pens for all the boys in my Jr. Choir. I got them from ‘Reliable Office Source’ magazine, where, because we own a business, we get a substantial discount. And when one orders in quantity, the discount increases. So I paid about $1.50 for each pencil/refill tube/pen gift. And, judging by how well Teddy and Joseph like such things, I think those boys will also like them.

Christmas practice went well Friday night, but I’m a little worried about the length of it; it took over two hours to get through it. Of course, we went over many of the songs more than once, and I had some of the smaller children say their poems twice. One and a half hours, I think, is plenty long for a Christmas program. I hope it’s not much longer than that--everybody will start helping themselves to the sacks of nuts and candy and apples and oranges waiting to be passed out at the back of the church!

Now I’d better finish Hester’s dress. Next, I’d better clean this messy house--we’ve invited the Jackson/Fricke/Jenkinson/Wright/Haddock tribe to come exchange gifts Christmas evening after our church dinner. And it looks like I’m going to need a bulldozer, or, at the very least, a front-end loader, to get this place cleared out.