Alex and Kaitlyn recently bought a townhome, and they were very excited to finally be able to host Christmas. It’s one of those rites of passage as an adult: finally having a place with enough room to invite your family over, rather than having to go to Mom and Dad’s place to celebrate the holiday season. It was great to have everyone together (again!) and we enjoyed a few days relaxing and playing.
William is about a month old now, but he’s still so small. Zack– who’s not really a baby person– spent a surprising amount of time with the little guy on his chest. There’s something about holding a sleeping baby.
We swung by Tara and Trent’s place for an exciting game night. It included Secret Hitler and Catch Phrase, both of which involve a lot of yelling. With this crowd it was a lot of fun.
On Christmas Eve Kaitlyn prepared her family’s traditional “Bethlehem Dinner”, which is a cool reminder of what it might have been like two millennia ago. We ate flatbread, chicken, cheeses, and grapes by candlelight.
Later that evening, it was time for The Presentations. This was Hannah’s idea: a few weeks earlier, she’d proposed that all of us make short 5-10 minute presentations about anything, and then have someone else present them. I thought it should be something educational, so I put together a handful of slides about the Great Emu War. Kyra drew the lucky straw and presented it. She did a great job, remaining serious and professional even though she had no idea what slide would come up next.
After that, Alex was able to present “The Science of Eye Contact”, which Kyra had written. It was actually quite informative, discussing how humans react to eye contact. However, her slides all featured gigantic horrific AI-generated eyeballs.
Things took a turn when Zack presented Alex’s topic, “The Art of Sacred Pooping”. It claimed to be “An Exhaustively Researched Report” but not surprisingly it was full of inside jokes (like the title itself) and plenty of scatological humor.
We finished with me presenting Zack’s deck, “Understanding Jeff: Meeting the Real Me” which turned out to be a scathing (but frankly hilarious) mockery of me. Where’s the respect in kids these days?
It was a riot, and will probably become a weird family tradition.
It will shock no one to learn that we played a lot of board games together. We even had a round of Wingspan with the highest scores I’ve ever seen.
The weather was freakishly warm, and we went on long walks every day in the 65-degree weather. Oliver loved riding his bike along the sidewalks in their little neighborhood.
When Christmas Day dawned, Oliver was naturally the most excited. He did an admirable job of holding back from tearing into his presents, waiting over two hours for everyone to be up and ready. It’s fun seeing how excited kids are about gifts. I don’t think he was prepared for the custom shower curtain I made for him, though:
I took a photo of him in a car at a carnival, added an outdoor background, and printed it in six-by-six-foot glory. It’s hanging in his bathroom now.
Oliver adores his Uncle Zack, probably because he’s like the crazy funny uncle who does things like make weird gang signs in photos.
Yeah, it was a hoot to be together. Merry Christmas to all.