Delightfully Merry

Osamu woke up early this morning and headed downstairs by himself, carrying one of his favorite books, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. The boys both love that book. We read selections of poems from it sometimes before bed. Their favorite is "Mr. Grumpledump's Song." I read it with a particularly churlish voice and they laugh like crazy.

Osamu can't read yet, but he loves the illustrations, so he looks at those and finds the poems he remembers and pretends to read them. He also loves the one about the guy whose head falls off and he can't find it so he sits on a rock to think about where he left it and it turns out the rock he's sitting on is his head.

When Osamu got downstairs, according to the story (we were all still asleep), he noticed two big special Christmas present bags by the tree. Apparently he didn't even remember this was Christmas morning.

So he ran back upstairs, climbed up to the top bunk, woke up Kenzo and told him he better get downstairs, and the festivities began.

Eri was awake and ready. She knew the boys would be chomping at the bit to see what Santa brought them. A short time later she came into our bedroom and opened all the shades to reveal a bright sunny morning and reminded me it was Christmas and to hurry up.

We all had a warm and cozy Christmas morning in the living room opening presents in our pajamas. Osamu got a toy monorail from Santa, which Eri had already helped him set up before I got downstairs. It's pretty impressive, modeled after an actual above-track monorail in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Kenzo got more Legos and a cat doll. He wants a real cat, but it's probably not practical for us, at least right now. He likes to point out that Osamu is a dog boy and he is a cat boy.

A little later we opened more presents that came came from our family abroad. Auntie Misty had texted me a while back about the boys' shoe sizes and gave me a heads-up about what she was planning on sending.

Kenzo and Osamu love their new slippers. I love that they have anti-slip rubber on the bottom. The boys love running around the house, which they should. They also love going up and down the stairs haphazardly. Kenzo actually slipped just the other day and bruised his bottom. I saw it happen. There was a sound that made me think he broke a bone, but it was just me being overly dramatic as usual. He was fine within fifteen minutes.

I spent the morning playing with the boys and finishing off the eggnog. I wanna make more but Eri thinks six eggs and the heavy cream (which is kinda expensive) and all is a treat to be made just once per year. She's probably right. Man it was so good. A splash of bourbon and a dash of cinnamon on top. 'Twas indeed a delightfully merry Christmas Day.

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Mr. Blue Sky

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