Well the holidays are coming to an end as a new year begins. But before I sadden myself about Christmas being over, I must replay some of this seasons greatest moments. As mentioned previously I had planned several holiday events to help me and my children understand the true meaning of Christmas.
One of this holidays most memorable events was going Christmas caroling with the kids. We rehearsed it seems every time we got in the car. We had planned to do quick renditions of Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Away In The Manger, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas....we only sang one chorus of each song which kept each door stopping event to about two minutes. Our list of houses included grandmas, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and friends. Being the oldest of ten kids you could imagine there were many stops to be made. We headed out about 3:30, my sister had made little bags of Santa's Soup (consisting of a packet of hot chocolate, candy cane, marshmallows, and chocolate mint kisses) which were to be given out to the lucky patrons who had to endure two minutes of tone deaf Christmas madness.
Aww I must admit we didn't sound that bad, considering our chorus was mainly children, most of them boys 9 and under. In fact most patrons welcomed us with open doors and applause after the first song...we eventually had to add an announcement at the beginning to ask them to hold the applause till the end. However I knew some wished it stopped after Jingle Bells.
I must say out of the many stops we made there were a few that were the most memorable and these were our impromptu stops. You see once the kids got going they wanted to Christmas carol anyone in our path, hence the wonderful clerks at 7Eleven. Yes when we stopped to get gas they all insisted that the clerks should also be entertained with their holiday GLEE, as most would be I was hesitant but proceeded with caution. After filling up with gas the original intent of our 7Eleven visit, the kids piled out of the car into the store...it took a few minutes for them to gather their composure and for me to explain there was going to be no visit to the Slurpee machine or the candy isle. The clerks couldn't be happier in fact she called the other clerk off break to come enjoy the festive caroling. I could tell she wasn't so happy having to come in from her much anticipated smoke break wondering what the heck this was all about. But as soon as the kids started their mini pageant both clerks almost broke down to tears. As I hurriedly rushed them through the songs I couldn't help but think this would be a great time for someone to take advantage of this situation. Which I must say with the recent convenience store robberies in Vegas this probably was not a good idea.
All is well and we all made it through OK and rushed through our next two stops before the tiredness of the kids took over. But before we came to an end the kids insisted again on doing a random stop at my brother's neighbors house. They were extremely surprised and puzzled. When my daughter lifted the goody bag to give them their treats, one of them commented...oh they want a donation. But were quickly relieved/surprised when we gave them something instead of asking for something....funny thing about the attitudes of people these days, they have their guard up always on the defense...but even more so when all you want to do is give them something for nothing...such an unheard of concept especially in Vegas....
What was it that Ice Cube said...ohh yeah Today was a good day!
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