A Treasured Christmas Memory

Life should be filled with more days like today. It was one of the most relaxing, yet fulfulling days I’ve had in quite awhile, and will not be soon forgotten.

It started out last night, really. The whole family went to Kohls to do a little “midnight” Christmas shopping. OK, it was actually about 7:30 when we went, but for all intents and purposes (from Ethan’s standpoint) it was close to midnight. After fulfilling many of our gift purchasing obligations we went back home and watched the first 20 minutes of Sky High, a movie about pubescent super heroes. It’s a great movie, and I had a hard time making Ethan turn it off at 11:00 to get him to bed…

This morning, Ethan woke me up around 8:00 (my how things have changed since he was a baby) and we watched the rest of the movie. Jenny had to go to work this morning since she is in the midst of open enrollment for her company and they haven’t yet discovered the benefits of the Internet for doing things like this… Before she left, though, she brought some breakfast up for Ethan and I which we ate while watching our movie. When the movie finally got done around 9:15, we put on our snow clothes and went outside where we spent about an hour shoveling the snow that has been accumulating for the last three days. Well, I was removing the snow, Ethan was playing in it and throwing it at me. After a quick snack, we got in the car and travelled about 10 miles to a tree farm south of Dousman where we went Christmas tree hunting. Ethan made several comments like “we look like hunters, don’t we, dad?” We walked all over that tree farm before finding a tree that both of us agreed on. It’s amazing what an opinion he has already at 4 and a half years old (never say that he’s four!). We cut down the tree, dragged it out to the road, and got into the car to warm up. With our trophy safely tucked away in the van, we headed home to brag and display it to mommy, who was very impressed.

After lunch, all three of us now spent the afternoon making cut-out cookies. Ethan enjoyed rolling out the dough, but especially putting his hands in the flour. Once the cookies were safely out of the oven, Ethan and I went back outside for some more snow fighting and to bring the tree into the house where we could mount it the trophy room.

Like I said, it was one of those simple days, not particularly taxing physically, and we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but it is a day that I will not soon forget.