A lot of things flew through the air over two days of
Christmas celebration in my family.
Christmas Day unfolded for me like it always does. The three of us here at what I call Family
Headquarters got up, opened our stockings, and ate breakfast. I then went to the morning church service and
returned home to open gifts. We then
drove to get Nanny and then they took me to my sisters and proceeded on to the
nursing home to see my grandfather.
It was at my sister’s house where things got interesting. The oldest, whom I’ll call Mr. Six is like
many children right now and is obsessed with Star Wars, despite never having
seen any of the films and there being no sign of his parents allowing it any
time soon. However, the parents did buy
Mr. Six and his younger sister whom her grandmother calls Buttercup each lightsabers. Watching a six year-old and a three year-old
duel with toy lightsabers is extremely funny.
Their mother would occasionally participate as she is quite a Star Wars
fan herself. Their father and uncle were
quite content to watch from the couches, both of us have never quite understood
what the big excitement about Star Wars is.
As a precocious and far too cerebral child, I thought Star Wars was a
bad idea that Ronald Reagan had.
Watching and listening to children play with their Christmas gifts is
one of my favourite activities this time of year. I saw many examples of lightsabers narrowly missing
breakable items on tables, shelves, and walls.
The sound of the lightsabers is still in my head like a bad song two
days later. I could care less that the
children received these, my joy was found in seeing them play. The only time the house on the western branch
of Carterlane Farm was not a Star Wars scene on Christmas Day was during
dinner, when the children, parents, uncle, two sets of grandparents, and two
great-grandparents sat down to eat.
Boomer, the little brown dog, laid quietly under the table. Mr. Six and Buttercup went to bed happy.
Boxing Day as we call it in Canada and the UK, (the day
after Christmas Day to everyone else) had its share of flying objects resulting
from children too. By Boxing Day,
children are even more tired and restless.
The best solution for this problem was their Grandpa to give Mr. Six and
Buttercup each guns that shoot foam darts with suction cups. Grandpa gave each of them very serious
instructions on how to safely and properly handle guns (even ones that shoot
foam darts) and the doorway from the living room to the front hall of my parent’s
house became a shooting range. Paper
targets were made and anyone who dare walked through the hall or on the
adjacent stairs was in the line of fire.
By dinnertime, restlessness and fatigue had led to even further
chaos. It was starting to resemble a
riot that could lead to a coup in a South American country. Mr. Six, given his age, is going through the
stage many little boys do by thinking junk, garbage, junkyards, and garbage
dumps are extremely funny. After he was
finished eating his dinner, he decided to make his own garbage dump. Packaging from gifts and the torn apart
remnants of our Christmas table crackers were flying around the dining room and
being pitched into the garbage dump.
Soon after dinner, a foam dart was fired in the living room, narrowly
missing a vase. There were also
occasional fly-pasts by a hand-cranked helicopter made from a building set Mr.
Six had received. Buttercup often
pretended a musical toothbrush she received in her stocking was a lightsaber.
The excited and often wild behaviour from the children is
tolerable at Christmas. These are a good
pair of small people and I love them dearly.
Even when I am living and working far away, I think of them several
times each day and always wish I could hear and see the new things they are
learning and discovering in life. Their
innocence, creativity, and imagination in how they play and communicate
honestly inspires me in my own life and work.
Lightsabers, foam darts, waste paper, and a mechanical helicopter, even
when improperly used, give us happy, lasting memories, and inspire us to think
outside our usual dull, conformist, adult attitudes.
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