Christmas Eve

Early in the day, dad and I took care of some errands like picking up a table at Uncle Kevin's and getting fresh cannoli. I was also finally able to get the copy of the poem that a lady wrote based on an interview with my Grandpa Schulz several years back. After the errands, I typed up the poem and put it in a frame for Kait and I to give Grandma for Christmas. Since Grandpa died last year, I knew that it would be a touching, tear-evoking gift but it was too good an idea to pass up.

The family went to the 5pm mass tonight as usual except that we were missing about 7 people because Chris and Dena (my brother and sister-in-law) weren't there nor were Uncle Dennis, Aunt Ann Marie, and their 3 kids. Mass was pretty typical with the songs being sung slow and the temperature a bit warm. However, the annual event of Santa running in from the back was slightly off this year and we wondered if he fell asleep in the back. Eventually he did come out and had the kids go up to sing Happy Birthday to the baby Jesus...I think it's church's way of trying to bring the focus from Santa back to Jesus.

Since Grandma Schulz had a small fire in her house and has been living with my family for a couple of weeks, we had Christmas Eve at our house. It's the first year that I've been home and didn't go to Grandma's for Christmas Eve (last year I was in Germany). Everything worked out well and mom, surprisingly, did not get too worked up. We had our traditional kids table in the downstairs room (parents were in the dining room). Eddie renamed the table the generation table though because most of us there are not young kids anymore. Danny was there and he's only 11 years old but Krista (age 4) didn't join us and Jason (10), Stephen (7), and Jenna (4) weren't there (they were with the other side of their family). So besides Danny, we ranged from Kellie at 16 to Melissa at 28. If Dena were there, we would have ranged up to 30. So generation table is a much more suitable name...even if we still act like kids there. We had a great time together and the parents got jealous that they were hearing so much laughing and such coming from our room. At one point Danny asked if he had to have salad. Eddie responded with, "Only if you want to. You're at the kids table where there are no rules. You want ice cream? We'll back up the truck." Danny is a little straightlaced sometimes so he didn't laugh as much as the rest of us but he did think it was nice not having to worry about adult etiquette rules and all. We reached in front of eachother and did other things not typically allowed...gotta love the no rules generation table. Also, all of us were sitting down at the table before the adults were settled because we listened to Grandma when she told us to. So the adults (aka parents) ended up serving us some things that we would have had to get up and go to the other table for. Dinner was the typical large fare (Grandma is 100% Italian) and included some lasagna, cheesy potatoes, and sausages. We had it made.

After dinner, we did the traditional gift exchange. I got a couple neat pictures of Krista and Danny opening gifts. I got a good one of Grandma's face as well when she opened up the framed poem. Everyone else in the family now wants a copy of the poem so I'll have to get that out to them. Although the gift unwrapping was a bit subdued without the other 3 young cousins, it was still a great time. My mom gave Melissa a calendar of Syracuse firefighters that she loved but to which she exclaimed, "they have their clothes on!" Gotta love family.