Groovin' at Christmastime

Well, the boys are in front of the fire playing with their loot, Julie and Nora went back to bed, and I'd be there too if there weren't a danger that we'd sleep straight through church later this morning. Oh, and the danger that the boys would conk each other on the head. Since I typed that last sentence, I had to go into the living room, snatch up a toy mailbox, and tell one of them that I meant it when I told him he couldn't play with it if he kept yelling at his brother.

And they say that James Brown is dead, though that can't possibly be true. It can't. So don't believe it.

Good morning. Merry Christmas.

I intended to write last night, on Christmas Eve, after the kids went to bed and Julie and I pottered around the house waiting for Santa Claus. I enjoy Christmas Eve so much more than Christmas morning, probably because Christmas morning comes so dang early if you have kids, and also because ... well, I dunno, there's so much pleasure in the anticipation, you know? On Saturday, we all made a long car trip to Julie's aunt and uncle's ranch, but the three-hour drive back took a lot longer than that because Nora cried and cried. And cried. And then, when she finished, she cried some more. We must have spent 90 minutes in various parking lots nursing her and trying to calm her down. We didn't get home till after midnight, and were all so worn out from it that we decided to spend Christmas Eve nesting at home. I made a massive pot of jambalaya, nursed the traditional Christmas Eve Rob Roy to be properly cheerful if Diana Krall decided to come down the chimney and sing for Daddy (Linus has the Great Pumpkin, Senor Crunchy has Diana Krall the Special Christmas Elf), built a big fire to ward off the wet chill, and read Christmas stories to the boys until it was time for bed.

What a kick to watch children ping off the walls waiting for Santa. Unlike our pal Terry Mattingly, who says Christmas belongs entirely to the church, we come down on the Erin Manning side of things, taking a pro-Santa line. (You'll want to follow the hyperlinks in the previous sentence to read their dueling columns from yesterday's Dallas Morning News. And by the way, here's something I wrote in this weekend's News: the only Christmas column you'll ever read containing the words "hydrocephalic sluts."

Anyway, church later this morning will no doubt put me in a more cheerful mood. Because hey, it's Christmas! As a late, great poet of the people once hymned: "Happiness -- good God, uhh! -- I got plenty of. Would you believe I got peace of mind? And I be groovin' at Christmastime."