Traditions

Yesterday was long. As most days, it started early and ended late. I had two meetings yesterday that were long and draining yet productive. For that I am very grateful. Unfortunately due to the tight schedule and overall craziness of the day, I forgot to call the boys in the morning. When I realized this mid morning, I felt terrible. Hopefully they are well.

The night ended with our magic rabbit escaping his cage once again. Our neighbors called a little after 11 to let us know that he was over in their yard. Huz went over to catch him with the help of said awesome neighbor. Seriously. This rabbit is magic. There is a boulder sitting in front of his cage, blocking the door, and he still somehow gets out. I can barely move this huge rock. At least the rabbit has his "favorite" places to go when he is free and at least none of our backyard wild animals have caught him before we did. That would be a disaster.

Today I am remembering a Christmas tradition my mom started with us. It is by far my favorite childhood Christmas tradition. We would choose one or two families to secretly do the 12 Days of Christmas for. It was a riot. Literally. And bless my dear mom. There were five kids in our family. I am the oldest. My dad was out of the town most of the time. My mom would coordinate the gifts (often a baked good or hot chocolate or some other little treat) and the delivery. This was done in the day prior to caller ID. Most days we would drop the gift at the door, ring the bell and run. I say we but for several years it was usually my brother and me as my sisters were too little to run the necessary speed to avoid being caught. As the days progressed and we were feeling the heat of the possibility of being caught we would shake things up by placing a mysterious phone call to the recipient telling them in a garbled voice to check their mailbox. This continued for the twelve days prior to Christmas and would end with us caroling on our secret family's front porch. We loved hearing people speculate who was visiting them. We even loved when they tried to catch us. Except the one time when we actually did get caught. We were devastated. All of us kids cried. Looking back now, that is pretty funny.

My favorite drop off was to my brother's friend and his family. They lived in our neighborhood, but far enough away still that most nights my mom would wait in the "pick-up" van 5 or 6 houses away. This family was a little intimidating. The dad's name was Butch. And they had a crazed hunting dog. What were we thinking?! So, my brother and I climb the steps to the house, set down the gift, go down as many stairs as we can while still reaching the door bell and ring. As we run down the rest of the steps, we hear the garage start to go up and Butch yell to the dog, "Get 'em boy!" (Now, lest you think our neighbor was truly evil, he was likely having as much fun trying to catch us as we were trying to not be caught) I remember the look of horror on my brother's face as we raced toward the driveway, watching the dog's nose and body try to squeeze through the opening of the garage door, barking. My brother dove under a truck that sat in the drive and I followed. We grabbed onto car parts and hung from them so that our bodies were not on the ground. The dog was going crazy. It seemed like an eternity. Us hanging from the underside of the truck, Butch patrolling the driveway and bushes yelling at the dog to get us, the dog standing by the truck barking incessantly. In the end, Butch and the dog finally went inside and my brother and I decided it was safe enough to run for home. Good times.