The Holidays Are Almost Over

Our weekend was sort of busy. On Saturday, all of us helped my mother prepare the house and food for today, when several of my mother’s relatives were lunch and dinner guests.

Whenever we could spare some time, my brothers and Josh and I would get on the floor and play with my nephew. He loves it when we play with him, and talk to him and laugh with him. He loves it when we give him piggyback rides and swing him through the air. He likes lots of attention.

Apparently he had a ball on Christmas morning. He tore through his presents like a house on fire (with a little help from my middle brother). He became so excited that, after his gifts had all been opened, he could not even eat his breakfast. I wish I could have been there to see it.

It is fun to watch my nephew react and interact with my parents. He can tell that his grandparents love him devotedly and without limit, and he plays up to that, always looking and smiling at my mother and father. He likes it when my parents watch him, and keep their eyes on what he is doing, and talk to him, and he likes it when they stop what they are doing and pick him up and hold him in their laps.

He did not like having lots of guests today. He viewed my mother’s relatives as interlopers on his playground, and he was torn between two conflicting reactions: wanting to keep an eye on them, at a respectful distance, and wanting to be as far away from them as possible.

Much of the day my brothers and Josh and I kept my nephew in the downstairs family room, where we played with him and the dog. However, my nephew kept asking us whether the strangers upstairs were still there, and every half hour or so we would have to take him upstairs so that he could have a peek for himself, at which point he immediately wanted to go back downstairs.

My parents and guests ate lunch and dinner in the dining room, but the rest of us took our meals in the kitchen, where we normally eat. I don’t think my nephew ever figured out who the guests were or why they had been invited into his house. He appeared to be relieved when they departed and he could have his house back.

The holidays are almost over, hard as it is to believe. The holidays always seem to pass too quickly, but this year they passed more quickly than ever before. Happily, we will get to see everyone again over Presidents’ Day Weekend, because we all decided to congregate in New York that weekend. Northwest is having a fare sale, and we have already booked our tickets.