The first Christmas Celebration

My niece Angela and I.

The first Christmas Celebration
By Allan Olson
It was another day on the road for this crew on Saturday as we left the house at 12 p.m. sharp heading for our first of two Christmas Parties. In the morning, I enjoyed about 90 minutes more of sleep than usual and then about the same of television time before I starting rousing the crew to start the process of getting ready. The process – includes being ignored at least the first two times and me forgetting to remind them for at least 30 minute intervals before I realized that I informed one or more of the kids to start getting ready – including, getting in the shower. Since my children were not so quick to respond – I decided that I might as well get my shower in first –just in case one of them uses all the water.
Earlier that morning Marcus had already departed with my niece to go watch his cousin play hockey somewhere, but we still had four kids as another nephew had come to stay the night before so my wife Nikolai, Marcus and my nephew could watch the new Star Wars movie.  On Friday, they opted for the 9:45 p.m. showing and I wisely (in my opinion) opted to stay home with the girls and not go to the show. I had been gone all day at the Big Bear tournament and really had no desire to see the movie – so I didn’t.
So after the six of us left the house on Saturday, we headed to town to get one gift that we nearly forgot to grab and headed north to International Falls – to celebrate with my wife’s family. The main Christmas gathering has been at her brother’s home for all of our 20 years together and usually pretty consistently the same weekend – occasionally varying for Saturday or Sunday – and as usual the bountiful fare provided for us was excellent. En-route to the big town, I had hopes of grabbing a geocache or more – but I didn’t bring my boots – so I wouldn’t be tempted to go for a long trudge through the snow and any that I thought would be close to the road, appeared to be on a trail with no nearby parking, except along the road and through the ditch of snow. So we continued northward – I made my first stop at a shoe repair shop with my best pair of shoes needing a little TLC and the store being recommended by my brother and the short week on my feet, I figured I could survive in my backup set of shoes. Once that errand was complete it was time to find a geocache.
My cousin had one hidden nearby, that had yet to be found and I had my sights on fixing that problem – mission failed. I called my cousin, he explained where it was supposed to be, I couldn’t get my paw in the tree, went to the vehicle for Abigail and lifted her up, she couldn’t find it and complained it was too cold digging in the hole. I thought she was acting awfully wimpy, after all it couldn’t be that bad. My nephew and I found a way to make the hole bigger, he stuck his big mitt in there and no luck and also confirmed – that it indeed was cold. I decided to stick my hand in and give it a try, I scooped the bottom of the hole, finding that there was a solid bottom but nothing in there and “wow was it cold,” – I guess maybe I need to not be so wimpy. So with that – we gave up and headed to the next stop. This one was a cache that is at the public library and I was about 10 minutes too late to get access to the building. So we moved on to yet another unfound cache of my cousins – this time, I was able to make the find – after waiting for the snowmobilers to leave so I could begin my search. We decided to try for one more after finding that one – again no luck was to be had, it could’ve been in a snowpile nearby, but I wasn’t digging for it. We drove by yet another one, but it too was guarded by a ditch full of snow and I really wasn’t properly dressed for it. Since we still had over an hour before we needed to be at my wife’s brother’s home – we went to my brother’s house and visited with my sister in-law.
At the Christmas party we visited with family, I also was able to see and try to entertain my youngest two nieces – but neither of them want much to do with this crazy uncle, when they have their favorite cousins who babysit them or their parents nearby.
We finally departed for home sometime after 8 p.m. and after a 20 minute delay about 10 miles out of town – due to a boot mishap between Marcus and my nephew we were on the road for home – finally reaching our destination sometime after 11 p.m.
On Sunday, I lazed around for most of the morning, then headed into town for a few last minute small items for the kids, found a geocache and headed home. I then tried to take a nap for the late afternoon, but failed - likely due to the stop at Caribou Coffee before heading home.
That evening, I worked on dishes, while my wife worked on supper and other areas that needed some improvement, before hitting the sack once again in preparation for another day of work.
The plans for this week, involve yet another Christmas party – and hopefully Geocaching.
Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.






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