Our family is slowly accepting a new Christmas tradition that has imposed itself upon us over the past several years. Because my job requires that I sing, strum, and Stille Nacht through any number of Christmas Eve worship services every December 24th, we typically aren't able to get out of town until Christmas morning.
Last year, we made the 367-mile trek to Kearney, NE, through a massive blizzard, spending most of our Christmas day crawling down I-76 through several inches of unplowed snow. Karissa, who was 3 months pregnant at the time, still shudders at the memory of warming up a frozen burrito in the microwave at a gas station in Ogalala for Christmas dinner.
This year, after only one (extremely stressful) Christmas Eve service at The Sanctuary, the Toro Es family woke up bright and early in an attempt to beat the "blizzard of the year" that was apparently racing us to the Western Slope. We made the trip to Grandma GiGi and Grandpa HeyDad's house in Cedaredge in just over 6 hours, snacking on pastrami sandwiches, Doritos, and Beef Jerkey that Karissa packed ahead of time. Finley slept practically the entire way, which was a small miracle, since he rarely dozes longer than 30 minutes at a stretch during daylight hours. We didn't even have to crank up the astonishingly inane "Wee Sing Silly Songs" CD until the last 25 minutes of the drive, when Finn finally decided that he was finished staring at the back of the seat, and needed a distraction.
In our sleep-deprived packing stupor, we forgot to load the Pack 'n Play into Clementine (our trusty Toyota Matrix). Finley, who is a total routine junkie, has had a great deal of trouble spending evenings away from home recently. So we were a tad apprehensive about the sleeping situation ... until we arrived, and discovered GiGi's solution. Apparently, Great-Grandpa Holmes brought a suitcase that he didn't want anymore, and it just happened to be about 6-month-old size.
He won't sleep in the suitcase for more than an hour at a time, even during the night ... we think he feels a bit too confined. However, it has become the iconic image of this Christmas at the Record house ... and I thought that, for my first-ever blog post, I should share it with you.
Krismasi njema, everybody. (that's Swahili for "don't feed the zebras")
This is going to be a really good year.
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