Update for Everyone VI: What Is and What Should Never Be

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

My kids are 9 and 7 and, to my shame, have never woken up in their own beds on Christmas before. We've always gone to my family's in Pittsburgh for Christmas Eve, or once to my in-laws in western Ohio. This year was a long overdue change. My youngest still believes in Santa, and the older to my surprise said he "gets" that all the Santa's in the malls etc. aren't real, but that there's only one "real" Santa. I honestly don't know if he's just humoring us. Yes, he's that bright.

Anyway, it was heaven on earth to have the kids come downstairs and see all the presents under the tree and love opening them. My parents came in for a bona-fide goose and stuffing dinner (plus a dish of briyani with duck eggs--God my wife can cook). And creamed spinach like we had the one time we ate at Delmonico's. And I made gin punch like the Cratchits had (according to a recipe I found on line).

My kids of their own volition--ok, influenced by their father's love bordering on obsession with A Christmas Carol--put on their own production of the story for my parents (well, at least for Marley's ghost and the Ghost of Christmas Past. They didn't have time to prepare the rest and forgot after our dinnertime break). Based on the George C. Scott version and the English Musical "Scrooge!", we played both 20 Questions and The Minister's Cat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Nh7tXEX00

Yeah, a damned fine Christmas.

I really don't like consumerism and materialism but seeing kids getting excited about opening and getting Christmas presents makes me really happy. I'm glad you got to share that with your children.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

This post is the 690,000th post on this board.

Nice.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I often wonder if I permanently damaged my body by spending all of high school locked in the bathroom forcing myself to vomit because my mother thought I was fat and worthless.

I spent a lot of time in the bathroom in high school, but it sounds like I enjoyed my time a lot more than you enjoyed yours.