Just One More Christmas Post. I Promise.

Really, this is the last Christmas post. Seriously. Unless I decide it isn't, but even I am getting a little embarrassed about the excessive dragging-on-ness of the season and this is my blog so I can't imagine the eyerolls that are happening on your end of the internet.

I couldn't draw this to a merciful close, though, without appreciating a few of the gifts that were gifted on Christmas morning. We had utterly amazing gifts, which can be described thusly:

1. Loving Hands at Home. Usually I use this phrase as a term of derision, and it refers to graphic design work that is performed by someone who has a computer and all those hundreds of fonts so they USE ALL THE FONTS! on their flyer. In this case, though, the loving hands belonged to Husband and he actually did make Boy#3's clarinet lamp (shown above).The old (non-functioning) clarinet is one we found in an antique shop during our charmed Michigan vacation, the base Husband fashioned of 100-year-old oak milled from a tree felled by a storm on the farm where I grew up. (No, I am not kidding.) Husband even bought new pads for the clarinet so that it would look authentic. Is this lovely or what?

2. How Old Do You Think I Am? Adele's new CD was on my wish list, and I was delighted to find it under the tree. At least I was delighted until one of the Boys said "Mom, do you even know who Adele is?" Hrmph. She was Mozart's nanny, right? 

3, Our PseudoSon Is a Storm Trooper! The Boy we borrowed for Christmas Day shares many traits with our own offspring, not the least of which is his intense love for all things Star Wars. (I won't mention that one of my sons flew halfway across the country for a meet-up with PseudoSon and another brother, just so they could be in line for opening night.) Anyway, I'm assuming when he wears his new apron no one will be to tell him from an actual storm trooper.

4. Oops--Santa Put This in the Wrong Stocking. Santa brought fancy, candy-filled cars for the stockings of the Boys and Lovely Girl, but the reindeer must have been double-parked because in Mr. Claus's rush to fill stockings the Cuddle Bug car went into Boy#4's stocking instead of into Lovely Girl's and Lovely Girl got a muscle car. Fortunately Four also received a highly masculine wrench in his stocking so his man card was not revoked.

5. You Don't Even Notice the Receding Hairline. Santa also brought Steak-and-Shake hats for all the Boys, which merited a selfie with Boy#2 and his mother. My favorite part of this shot is the photobombing Lovely Girl in the background. If we ever need to prove that we have teeth, this is the shot we'll use. 

6. Someone Needs a Proofreader. Another of my gifts, a switch that lets me toggle between Netflix and the football game without leaving my recliner. But a "digtail" (digital) switch was easily translated compared to the instructions for Two's do-it-yourself theremin:

Russian? Chinese? Who knows?

Yes, should be interesting to see what kind of good vibrations emanate from the result of that instruction book. (It's a theremin, see? Like the Beach Boys used for the woo-oo-ooooo-ooooo-ooo  in "Good Vibrations"? Never mind.)

I'm not going to go into the rest of the gifts because there were too many to describe, but suffice it to say that one of them elicited an "It may be the best present I've ever gotten!" and when we were done the living room looked like this:

God bless the recycling guys, too.