We are in the throes of the holidays, just a couple weeks away from Christmas.
Our house has a family record number of Christmas lights this year. After being denied by a couple professional services to get lights on the pitch of our roof, validating my own refusal, your Mom finally found a handyman who was willing and she took care of most of the rest except the pitch of the garage and our porch, which I handled before vacation in Kauai.
Coming off vacation, we went to a garden nursery in Proctor and picked out a tree, making the most of our raised living room ceilings with an 8-footer, before the tree topper. Unfortunately we didn’t have the right tree stand so our tree fell over twice now — first flooding the surrounding floor with water and later crushing the ornaments we hung after wrongfully believing we resolved the tree stand stability. You did a good job helping us clean up after each catastrophe. I don’t want to add up the cost of those ornaments and the state-of-the-art, burly tree stand I bought this morning at Home Depot. Christmas is always an expensive endeavor and sometimes for unplanned reasons like that.
This year you’re asking Santa for a robotic elephant thing and a wand to help you fly, which we addressed last letter. I think you’ll be happy with Christmas so long as you continue to work on your patience with Matteo. Overall you’ve done a good job but every-so-often you take his bait and take a swing at him. You adjust OK after an occasional “time out,” which is more effective at giving you some space as it is a punishment. We rarely had an issue while on vacation, and you were incredibly independent. You had ready friends in the Chaffee twins and were constantly in the water — backyard pool or ocean. Who needs the attention of parents or can be bothered by a little brother with all that excitement and entertainment?
One of my Christmas wishes is that we spend a little more time skiing. Until we can afford a dream cabin, it’s a long day and long drive but skiing is a sport I’ve come to love and enjoy sharing with you. We’ve skied one day — opening day — at Crystal Mountain so far in this unimpressive winter. After some hesitation and nervousness you found your groove alongside your Mom and were really fun to watch. Skiing is the way to get through these (usually) wet Northwest winters, and I think you’ll be glad to have learned skiing at a young age and not in your mid-20s like me. Everything is harder to start as an adult, which is why we’re throwing everything at you now. I have no doubt in my mind you can handle all of it, including flying down the hill.
Love, Dad