Saturday, December 20, 2008

Another Christmas Tradition

My Dad is just a big kid. We all have come to realize that Dad will never grow up. Dad's favorite part of Christmas presents is filling all the stockings. Since our family is huge and still growing, years ago Dad and Marsha started filling gift bags for everyone instead of buying more stockings with every new family member. They are up to 18 gift bags this year to fill, and Dad has a blast shopping for them. Every year he finds some sort of toy for the "boys" in the family, and they spend the afternoon playing with them until they break. A few years ago it was wheels that were on a pulley zip chord, and they were racing them across my floor, seeing who could knock pictures off my wall. I finally kicked them outside and they raced them down my driveway. (Nate even got out the chalk and made a start and finish line). Another year it was marshmallow guns, and I found mini marshmallows around my house (ok, the kids did) for a month. Nate's favorite toy was the whoopee cushion he got. He spent the whole afternoon trying to get everyone to sit on it. The next year he asked Grandpa for another "tooter". He also loves to buy the grand kids noisy toys. If it's obnoxious and noisy, Dad will buy it for the kids. Seriously, it's never a quiet moment when Dad is around. Being that I am hosting Christmas with Dad this year, I am really scared about the toys he has found. I might have to take all the breakables down before he gets here. And where did I put those earplugs?

No comments: