Hello! How was your Christmas?

Dogwood. In December.

Ours is a rather low-key celebration of the holiday.

Typically, we would hunker down around the fireplace with hot chocolate and old movies, but we haven’t had a fire in the hearth in over two weeks, and it was just too darned hot for hot chocolate. It has been in the 70s for over a week in Maryland. No white Christmas here.

It started raining on Wednesday afternoon. I picked my children up at their various bus stops late Wednesday, as the schools closed officially for the holiday break.

The rain was predicted to last for several days straight. I reasoned with the children that, hey, at least it is some kind of precipitation falling from the sky. We still may get snow sometime, just not on Christmas.

Still, all was calm.

The children came home, then were nestled all snug in various couches and chairs with their electronic handheld devices, while visions of Minecraft danced in their heads.

And then…on Christmas Eve morning, our Internet provider (Verizon) took a powder. For about 48 hours.

Cue the childish wails and gnashing of non-adult teeth. Cue the cries of “Mom! Do something!” “Dad! We can’t get online!”

Granted, some of their devices and electronic amusements do not require an Internet connection. But oh, the idea that these young ones would have to be inconvenienced for more than five minutes.

No grinches here. Just a good holiday dinner! Source: boweryboogie.com

We broke out the Monopoly, Scrabble, and chess sets. The kids went outside in between the breaks in the storm that hung around until this morning.

We all read books — actual books, not Kindle books — ate roast beast, sweet potatoes, and Christmas caramel cake, and had a very merry celebration.

Of course, with all the activity around here, I didn’t expect to get anything accomplished on Emmett’s book — but — late Wednesday afternoon, right before I had to head out to pick up my children, I got a message from Katie Wilson Meade’s granddaughter firming up the date when we’ll get together!

It’s only a little more than two weeks away!

I’ll have a chance to catch up tomorrow morning (I’ve carved out some official writing time and cleared it with the family). I’ll be back in a day or so!

Categories: Family The Writing Life

jsmith532

Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus