The last five days have been amazing. Paul and I have always loved celebrating the holidays. However, having Dante join us this year made it a thousand times more special and exciting.
The festivities began on Friday night at our martial arts school, Fearless Fitness. It happened to be one of our coaches birthday so we celebrated with pizza, cake and mayhem.
We piled Dante and a mountain of gifts in the car Saturday morning and headed to my grandmother's house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. My grandmother had almost all of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren together to celebrate Christmas for the first time in over 12 years. It was a raucous, amusing and exhausting day.
On Sunday we drove from my grandmother's home to Camp Haze (my dad's ranch) in Chowchilla. More food and presents! An unusual twist to the day: I had promised my friend Janna a branch of mistletoe from my dad's trees. It is a parasite that often kills the trees so my dad is always happy to get rid of it. I asked my dad if I could get some to take home to Janna. Dad grabbed his 22 rifle and we all marched outside to watch him shoot mistletoe out of the tree. When I mentioned to him that I could actually climb up the tree and grab the branch he was aiming for, he simply asked me "Well, where is the fun in that?" It took 15 rounds to get the poor branch down, but he accomplished the goal. Dad, Paul, my brother Jimmy and the rest of the boys then proceeded to go to the slough behind the horse corrals and practice target shooting.
When we got in the car to drive home, Paul started laughing and said, "Well, that was a first for me. I've never shot guns on Christmas before."
On Monday evening we put Dante back in the car for the 15 minute drive to Paul's dad's house. Paul Sr. loves Christmas and goes all out decorating the house with oversized stuffed animals, lights, an enormous tree and the 30 year old train that makes its annual trek around the tree. We had a delicious dinner including the Tosetti's traditional St. Honore cake before opening gifts.
After three days of travel and visiting, Paul and I were thrilled to spend Christmas Day at home with Dante. Per our custom, we watched movies (Stardust and Shrek 3), ate cinnamon rolls and opened gifts. It was a very low key day to cap an exhausting, yet magical, family packed weekend.
The holidays are always made more special by children and yet, they can be overwhelmed and unmanageable due to the festivities. Paul and I were so thrilled and amazed at what a good boy Dante was throughout the long weekend. He spent two days traveling in the car. He was up almost every night, hours past his bed time. He was picked up and carried around by family members he had never met before. He was introduced to all different types of food. He spent, what seemed like hours, opening gifts and playing with toys. And yet, he never cried, got out of control or acted out. I learned a lot from watching how well he handled the joys of the holidays. I aspire to have his grace and good manners.
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