The Heard Family Christmas

This year we told the kids, about a week before Christmas, that "Jesus' Birthday" was coming and we were going to throw him a birthday party. Our oldest was out of town so this was into the ears of a 7, 6, and 4 year old. They liked it - birthday parties are fun! When they found out they'd be getting presents (because Jesus said what you do to/for my followers you do to/for me) they liked it even more.

So that's what we did -- birthday cake, birthday song, and all. It went great. Nobody mentioned Santa Claus, and I guess nobody missed him. He's actually always been a weak theme here since we've always presented him as being both (1) a historical figure and (2) a game of pretend that some people like to play at Christmas.

I guess we could have put 4 number candles on the cake spelling out " 2 0 0 6 " for his age, but then he is really ageless and eternal, so we opted to put a candle on the cake for each of us.

I have to say this is one of my happiest, most peaceful, best Christmas's ever. My mom and sister stopped by for a few minutes and exchanged gifts with us, and Steph's mom and grandma were going to but couldn't at the last minute because of health concerns (it turned out OK), and most of all it was a long, fun day at home playing with the kids.

One gift had a problem - (doesn't at least one gift have to have a problem at Christmas?) I built a computer for the three younguns to share, and it was really nice, but it wouldn't fit on the desk built into the side of the girls bunk beds where the old computer fit - it was like one stupid inch too tall. Yeah you should have seen me trying to cram it in ... so anyway I told them I'd move the insides of it to their old computer, so it would run a lot better, and they seemed happy enough with that, and that worked, and so now I have a new looking computer with old insides, which I think I'm going to loan to someone I know that doesn't have a computer right now ...