So, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, you know that the Norell clan tends to go a wee bit overboard with the Christmas cheer. For starters, *everyone* in this house still believes in Santa Claus — you’re just simply not allowed in the door this time of year if you don’t. Yesterday, Grandma made the rookie mistake of implying (but, she maintains, not actually *saying* — though, honestly, she doesn’t have a lot of credibility in these things) that she doesn’t still believe; the kids, as a way of teaching her a lesson, wrapped up a big rock smeared with mud (“so it looks like coal”) and included a note: “This is what Santa brings you when you don’t believe.” We are hard core!
Christmas Eve is the night we get together with the Dilbecks, longtime family friends. The two Dilbeck children were my babysitting charges throughout an awful lot of my growing up years, and so any time we get together, the same old stories about the torture I inflicted upon the oldest of the two, Casey, get trotted out. Most memorably, perhaps, was my stubborn insistence that Casey broaden his lunchtime palate beyond sandwiches consisting of bread, a slice of cheese, and ketchup. To be sure, the fact that this was the ONLY thing he’d eat made my life as the provider of foodstuffs easier, but I would take it personally (as I am wont to do) when he would, day after day, refuse to sample the fare I made for the rest of us, who most assuredly did NOT wish to live on bread, cheese, and ketchup. The ultimate showdown came one day when I made hot dogs. Once the four of us (me, Bobby, Casey, and Crystal) were all sitting at the table for lunch, I announced that Casey was not getting out of his chair until he *tried* a hot dog. It got ugly. He asked what would happen if he needed to go to the bathroom — classic child thinking — and I just blithely replied, “You’ll have to go in your pants, and after you eat the hot dog, you’ll have to clean up your mess.” As it turns out, I can be kind of a bitch. Eventually, in this battle of wits, I won; Casey tried the hot dog, ended up liking it, and nobody soiled themselves. This story gets told EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. We had other showdowns (once over spaghetti), and his family credits me with forcing him to broaden his horizons. Today, he eats *everything*, and they thank me. So, my meanness was not for naught.
Because Tracy’s here this year, though, other stories got told — ones we hadn’t heard in ages, some of them. Tracy and I spent the vast majority of our childhood playing with two nephews of the Dilbecks. The four of us were an incredibly self-contained group of four; we needed little adult involvement in our playtime. We spent summers romping around the woods and outside, having all manner of fun. We put together a show-stopping “circus” routine and, after a solid afternoon of group brainstorming, dubbed ourselves the Golden Dandelion Circus. We really did try to recruit an audience (as children often do), but alas, nobody ever saw the amazing feats of agility and bravery we’d concocted.
When I was four, Lee and I apparently decided to do Grandma Dilbeck a big favor by washing her mirror and getting it “sparkling clean” … with toothpaste, which we smeared all over the mirro.
The year Darren and Lee got motorcycles for Christmas, Tracy decided she wanted to try her hand at piloting Lee’s. She hopped on, got a quick tutorial, and assured everyone she could drive it. And she did drive it — right into the fence, because apparently what she *didn’t* know how to do was turn and/or stop. We all panicked — if there was ever any chance of me driving the motorcycle, it was lost in her spectacular flip at the fence — most of all Lee, who was terribly concerned with the working condition of his beloved bike.
The most well documented antics we cooked up came on a hot summer day when my parents were having a yard sale. Bored out of our skulls and told to go entertain ourselves so we weren’t underfoot, we ambled up the hill a bit to the big pile of dirt sitting off the side of the (rather long) driveway. We procured ourselves a hose, stripped down to our cutoff shorts (all four of us), and turned the pile of dirt into a very fantastic mud pile… and then spent the afternoon sliding down it. We were covered head to toe in mud by day’s end. But, we had definitely NOT been bugging our parents! Before they’d let us within spitting distance of the house, my parents loaded us up into the back of my dad’s truck and drove us the couple of miles to the lake for a really good prerinse. There were lots of photos taken, and all of the relevant parents (I think) now have coffee cups of the four of us, clad in mud, having the best summer afternoon you can imagine. Good times!
So last night was, to summarize, a great evening of reminiscing and, as usual, eating ribs and yummy homemade rolls (I won’t take all the credit, but I will happily take a good deal of the credit for how awesomely the bread turned out). I love ribs. Really. (But in almost all circumstances, I love bread more.)
Santa came last night, and although I am patently opposed to the practice of snooping, a cursory glance suggests I will end this day much as I’m beginning it (i.e., keyboard-less). For this I am not upset, sad, or disappointed; Santa has already been very good to me this year in other, small-box ways. Hell, I may just have to break down and buy myself one. If and when I go back to tutoring, that can be my first project, perhaps? The kids are stirring, though, and so it’s time for me to hop in the shower and do what I can to make myself look cute. There are cameras out there, and I learned a long time ago that skipping a Christmas morning shower is, um, ill-advised.
Merry Christmas everyone! (And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, have a wonderful whatever-holiday-you-celebrate!!!)