It is 6:36 AM on Christmas Day. The picture above was taken just after “Santa” arrived and delivered the presents. This is the scene now with the fish tank light turned on.
We had family friends over last night for a Christmas Eve meal. It was great to see them again as it had been two years. They would always come for Thanksgiving but the past two Thanksgivings were spent in Ohio.
In speaking with my friends it seems we all agree that the vaccine booster makes us tired. I’ve been completely drained come 8:30 PM and so has she. We both got the boosters around the same time and it seems it takes about a week for the fatigue to start. As for me I also now have back pain and was afraid I was going to have another gout flare. I haven’t had one of those since the last vaccine as I’ve been working out and watching what I eat. I know I sound like an old man writing about body aches but my point in doing so is to record that these are most likely an inflammatory response from the vaccine, not necessarily getting old. I’m not one to complain, I don’t like taking medicine and these two symptoms are not terrible so I’ll just power through.
I wrote yesterday that I didn’t feel the magic yet. Well, this morning as I write these words I do feel that magic. It is a beautiful scene and incredibly quiet. It is more quiet than normal because I unplugged the filter and air pump. I record our Christmas mornings and it became easier to do about five years ago when I installed an IP camera in the room. Now I do not need to set up a video camera but can just pull the recording. The video isn’t as high quality as a video camera but since it is situated in the corner on the ceiling it captures everything. However, the noise from the fish tank was also captured by the camera and being very loud I just unplugged.
Now I’m just waiting for everyone to wake up. I expect my oldest will wake up soon but since we were up later than usual it may be he’ll only wake up if there is a noise (which there won’t be.) I caught him on the camera last night about 12:30 AM sneaking into the living room and having a look at the presents. It was very cute seeing him looking around and trying to be so quiet. The lesson son is surveillance is everywhere these days when it only used to be Santa keeping watch all the time until about 2005 or so.
When trying to summon Christmas magic I must think back to my childhood Christmases as all powerful holiday magic is born from childhood. It is these wonderful experiences I want my own kids to have and in doing so create new magic both for them and for myself. Sometimes the past repeats itself as I told my son how I enjoyed sitting on the heater vent on a cold Christmas morning staring at the presents around 4:00 AM in a perfect silence. He now enjoys sitting on air vents and putting a blanket over him to trap the hot air. However, I still seem to be the only one who wakes up at 4:00 AM.
I remember specific moments of Christmas as a child and will relate a few of them here.
We were driving back from midnight mass when my Mom suddenly says “Oh look, there is Santa Claus flying over there!!” My little sister who must have only been 3 or 4 at the time said “I see it, I see it!!!” Well, I didn’t see it and I was sorely disappointed.
We had opened the presents and were enjoying our toys. I had on my brand new monkey slippers, was sitting on the floor with my legs outstretched in front of me in my sisters My Little Pony tent. I was playing a airplane dogfight game that I put over my eyes like binoculars. Well, I had been playing for about 10 minutes when I put the game down and suddenly saw two faces staring at me and it scared the bejesus out of me. It was my monkey slippers staring back.
Well the kids have woken up and it is time to start the day. Will possibly write more later.
