Merry Christmas: Part Two

After months of waiting, Christmas morning finally arrived. At last, I was able to leap into the pile of presents and swim through them like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin. The only problem was that all the presents these days are for the kids. That’s what really stinks about growing up. Your Christmas gifts get to be fewer and fewer, and when you shake a wrapped book, it makes no noise.
By the time the Southern Branch of the Gruetzmacher family awoke, everyone else was already downstairs opening their stockings (which were in fact hung by the chimney with care). It was awesome, or so Alex told me. Santa came. He left presents and ate the cookies which my mother was so kind to leave out since the kids forgot to.
Kasia was apprehensive about opening her stocking at first. I’d pull something out for her, and she’d put it right back in. After a little cajoling, she finally got the idea that the toys inside were for her and it was ok if she wanted to take them out and play.
The rest of the opening of the gifts went much the same way. Everyone had their own strategy for opening presents. Alex tore them open as fast as he could get a hold of them. Noah opened them whenever he was given a new one. Kasia opened one, and didn’t want another one until she had satisfactorily played with the toy she had just opened. And Rick, he just kind of hid all of his presents so that when everyone else was done, he could feel special by having a ton of unopened gifts.
All in all, everyone had a great time.
The friday after Christmas gave us a special treat. It snowed. Oh my, however did it snow. Finally we were in a winter wonderland as this mini-blizzard came pouring down upon us. Kara and I went out to do some quick shopping, and we had a great time having a snowball fight out in the parking lot. It was that amazingly great snow that sticks well and is perfect for snowball fights.
The next day, we went up to Milwaukee, where they got even more snow than we did. For the first time in, well, maybe forever, the grandchildren of Ray Schumacher all got together under one roof. That alone is worthy of a party.
We decided to head back home on January 30th because we didn’t want to be driving on New Year’s Eve. The drive was very uneventful, until we got to Pennsylvania. Somewhere in the mountains we ran into a blizzard. So there we were, driving in a blizzard in the mountains in the middle of the night. The weather could not have gotten any worse. When we couldn’t see the road because of the blizzard, it was the fog or the rain. Whatever it was, there was something trying to keep us from getting home.
But we did get home. It took 16 hours, but we got home. We managed to sleep for a few hours, and then when we woke up, we brought Kasia over to her Granny’s house to spend the night. Kara and I spent New Year’s Eve at home, and we caught up on our sleep. It was the best possible way to start off 2008.