Christmas Weekend

Christmas Weekend 

The gingerbread masterpieces were finally complete, and it was time for that “finished product” photo. The next day, the kids enjoyed eating on one of their creations, and the other one, well, it disappeared into the great white beyond. Photo by Nikolai Olson.


By Allan Olson
Since Christmas falls in the middle of the week this year, it’s hard to determine which weekend, exactly, is Christmas weekend. For us (and I’m sure many of you) both this past weekend and next be Christmas weekends.
Saturday was a busy day for me. I attended the Big Bear Wrestling Tournament in Cass Lake, watched a lot of exciting matches, and enjoyed some tasty food. I had Abigail with me, and she was greatly amused with the fact that I had to spend money to feed her – especially since I ended up spending more on her for food in the first couple hours than I did the whole day previous with Nikolai. We visited the malt machine and, while the prices were affordable, I wanted to just share one, thinking that neither of us needed a full one. I guess I can blame her teachers for getting her to read, because I read the flavors and purposely omitted those I didn’t want. Not satisfied with my censoring, she read the list of flavors herself and chose one I didn’t want, so I decided to boost the organization raising funds and bought one for each of us. She was quite amused by that.
Once the tournament was over, we headed home to start preparing for the next day’s road trip. We finished making goodie bags and finally headed to bed late (at least for me it was). 
Ah, Sunday – the day of rest. With early deadlines this week because of the holiday, I figured I better get something written up and sent in, so I did. Before I knew it, it was time to start getting the van ready to go. The children found some pajamas (just in case) and gathered their winter clothes (just in case) and eventually the van was packed and ready to go. 
We set off at about 1:30 p.m., and due to a dusting of snow, traveled quite carefully down the snow-packed, icy roads toward our destination – International Falls.
We took our sweet time heading north. I was in no hurry to have to get pulled out of a ditch in the middle of nowhere and cause a major delay and miss out on all the food. The trip was longer than usual, and the kids were noisy at first, but they fell asleep eventually, and we did make it to our destination.
Once nearly everyone arrived at the family Christmas party, it was time to dig in – and the food was very good. I piled my plate high for the first round, and after I polished that off, I declared myself full. However, the allure of all that delicious food sitting there was just too much. I waited about 10 minutes before digging in again, although this time my portion sizes were much smaller. After all appetites were satisfied, we exchanged gifts for the kids and goody bags for the adults. Then it was time to dig into the goodies again. Even though I was still full, I managed to eat at least a few cookies.
Soon it was time to depart, so we packed up and ventured south toward home. Thankfully, by this time the roads were in much better shape, to the credit of the hard-working highway plow crews that had been out to clear them off. The kids all fell asleep again – well, all except Abigail. Finally, when we were about halfway home, I handed my phone back to her. “Are you giving me this to keep my quiet?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “It won’t work,” she replied. Well, it did work and it didn’t – she didn’t do much with the phone, but after that she wasn’t as annoying in the vehicle, so it ended up being a good compromise.
Earlier in the week, we had a visit from my parents. While they were there, we finished our Christmas shopping and they had the privilege of creating gingerbread houses with the kids. It looked like a good time was had by all, judging from the pictures (I handed my camera to Nikolai to document the activity as I headed out the door).
We have another trip planned this weekend, this time to Baudette for another family Christmas party. During the middle of the week, on the actual holiday, we will be home by ourselves. Our Christmas Day plans have not been carved in stone (ice?), but I’m pretty sure that the kids will want to open the presents that have mysteriously appeared beneath our tree, and we probably won’t go far after that happens.
Please be safe while ice fishing this season, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime of memories. Also please watch out for the buses that are transporting our children. And remember to drive safely and slowly this winter season. Thanks for reading, and have a great week and Merry Christmas! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.

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