nanowrimo madness

Yesterday was Christmas. Mostly it seemed to be about laughter. Some of it related to the zany things we’re compelled to give each other like slot machine banks and window paint. Or the singing frog puppets Eyvonne’s mom gave Owl and Thunder. And a can of dog food with a home-made paper label identifying it as corned beef for Sarah who won’t eat the canned variety because it looks like dog food.
Factor in Zac’s performance using a 12-foot shipping tube as a musical instrument, Lee’s new watch that clips to a belt loop; a surefire way to attract girls… and Lillie wresting ops from Shel to leap over piles of wrapping paper and boxes, bolting from the room because we were having so much fun we ignored the time and our Christmas duck was an hour overdue for its date with the oven. Maybe we were just lulled into security by the smell of the ham already cooking. We had ham for dinner and duck l’orange for supper. Neither cost more than a dollar a pound. Our entire gourmet Christmas cost less than the turkey most Americans were gorging on for one meal.
Christmas actually started for us a few days early when Mer casually handed Eyvonne and I a card with a check in. It was enough to cover that TV we’d been coveting for two years. We were stunned. It was insanely cool of her.
“I worked a couple extra days,” she said shrugging.
Owl and Thunder gave Eyvonne and us Qs a DVD/VCR player. I felt like we were the kids and they were the grown ups. After all the gifts were opened and we were almost ready to eat Owl said, “Hey, I think I forgot a gift up in Thunder’s room.”
He turned to his brother. “Did you see it up there? It had a red bow on it.”
Thunder shook his head no. They raced up the stairs to find it and came down carrying a huge box. “Hey come in here!” they called.
Lillie started to cry. It was a TV bigger than the one we coveted. Eyvonne was teary too. Now we really felt like kids! The guys loved being Santa. It was a blast.
The day was filled with food and friends. We ate a ton of candy and ‘pecan crack’ an addictive mix of pecans rolled in sugar and cinnamon created by our friends from Philly as we watched movies on our new system. The picture on the ancient TV we’d been borrowing from Thunder was grainy and wobbly. It was strange to see everything in true, crisp colors. We could use Mer's check to get sattelite service and have real TV!
I thought about last Christmas. We’d moved back into this house three weeks earlier. We had no propane to cook Christmas dinner. We managed the entire thing in an electric frying pan, a toaster oven and a crock pot. We had only enough wood to last a couple of weeks. None of us had a real job. Our tree was a three-foot scraggly pine we’d culled from the back yard. Our gifts were simpler, but the laughter was the same. No matter what we always have laughter to pull us through.
This Christmas we have wood, propane, a real tree and food. We have a new family member to share it all with. We each have some sort of job and Owl will soon start an actual, real full-time job with benefits. We have friends willing to help us through our financial crisises - teeth, tuition and TV. hmmm what are the cosmic consequences contained in all those ‘T’s?
When I look back a year and see all we have accomplished with so little to work with I’m amazed. This new year should rock.
© 2004 M. S. Eliot