It does not seem like it was that long ago
that I remember walking into our son’s bedroom on Christmas Eve to see
something that I had never seen before.
Ian was sound asleep, and signing. Santa and reindeer on were on the
roof – he could feel the house shake!
Gifts, gifts, gifts. The reindeer
had found the reindeer food we put in the yard (dog food)! We stood and watched for about 3 or 4 minutes
as Ian dreamed, and signed as he slept.
Santa did come that year, and he was thrilled. I do not remember exactly what he got, but
the gifts were the gifts that most 4 or 5 year olds want.
Seventeen years further on, that is still one
of my favorite Christmas memories. Now
that he is twenty one, we have to send the golden retriever upstairs to wake
him instead of shooing him back to bed because the sun is not up, and 4:00 AM
does not mean it is morning…. The simple
reality is that there are now 3 adults in the house instead of 2 adults and a
kid. The Christmas memories are now
different. We opened gifts and then had
to wake him up again to go on down to my wife’s parent’s house for breakfast
and, of course, more gifts.
There are still memories made, however. We did spend time in Virginia with my parents. It isn’t a particularly exciting trip, but it
is important. My father is not able to
travel, so it is one of the few times a year we can see him or my mother. Ian is so good with the sitting. My father is just so happy we are there and
wants Ian to sit with him. Ian does,
without complaining. For me, it is
bittersweet, remembering what my father was like when he was younger. But, there is nothing you can do to fight
that inexorable passage of time.
Christmas Eve, Ian and I had two jobs – we first
directed the parking of cars at church (small parking lot and a lot of cars)
and then we went inside and were ushers for the service.
Bracketing Christmas, the wife and I had two
other milestones. Both of us turned
50. We are twelve days apart in
age. It wasn’t a huge crisis for either
one of us. The only bad part was the
doctor’s appointment where I suddenly realized that the nurse taking my pulse
was young enough to date my son. That
was the only time I felt old…. Anyway,
like the song says, it is just another trip around the sun.
New Year’s eve – there were three glasses of champagne
instead of two and a sparkling cider. Then
the two older ones went straight to bed.
Ian had done some socializing with friends, but was kind enough to spend
New Year’s with his parents.
Ian also gave us a couple of gifts. The most important one for us, however, was
an early one. He got his grades for the
semester at St. Johns River State College.
Two A’s and a B. 3.66. All three of them in his computer science
major. One programming class, a network
design class, and one on computer operating systems. Neither one of us could have asked for a
better gift. And the best part of all of
it for us was that we stayed out of his hair and did NOT helicopter. It was up to him whether he succeeded or not
and if he studied or not. His choices
and he seemed to have made the right ones.
Merry Christmas to us! Ian was
also happy, because the helicopter had actually landed instead of the constant
hover. I guess that way Santa did not
need an air traffic controller to land at our house.
