It’s now officially Saturday, December twenty-second. Rowen and I stayed up to make sure of that,
so apparently the end of the Mayan long calendar cycle did not mean the end of
the world after all!
Since we do have access to the archives, I knew that wasn’t
really a worry, but it was certainly one of the top stories around the world
today; and it would have really sucked to have the world end when you’re only
eleven or twelve – especially just a few days before Christmas.
Before getting to the last day of school recap, I guess it’s
safe to mention now that our archives have extensive records from the Mayans;
including much of the knowledge thought to be lost when the Europeans went on
their mission to wipe out all of the Mayan writings. That’s how we know that the long calendar was
never meant to mark the end of the world on the twenty-first any more than
you’d expect a global-level disaster at the end of a lunar, solar, or
millennial cycle. It’s a calendar,
people – buy the one for the next five thousand or so years! (Okay, the next
big Mayan date is on October 13, 4772; but nobody currently alive on this
planet will need to worry about that date either.)
Moving on to real current events, it didn’t warm up enough
today to lose all of the snow, so we had some more winter fun today. That included more snowball fights, but I
made sure that there were no new moments that Aunt Leanne could use against me
later; and it was all fun, all day today.
We played all morning at school; had our classroom Christmas parties
after lunch, and were set free early to get a head start on our Christmas
holidays. Our class had the added bonus
of a lunchtime birthday party to celebrate Marc’s twelfth, and though his
birthday is on Saturday; he’s not doing a friends party when so many of us are
busy with our families and Christmas all weekend. That’s one thing that isn’t great about
having a birthday so close to Christmas, but Marc seemed happy that we did at least
do something for him today.
The only other news from school is that Rowen and I handed
out a bunch of our ‘friends’ Christmas gifts during the party; including one
anonymous gift left by Rowen for a certain guy with a little look-out assistance
from her best helper-elf friend. The
gift was a big hit with him; not so much with his girlfriend; and Rowen was
both thrilled and a total wreck for at least the couple of hours surrounding
what I thought was a really awesome holiday moment.
Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana had been at KidZone for their Christmas
party, and Rowen and I got home before they did even after checking in at the
computer store and stopping to pack her overnight bag on our way back from
school. We started out our play
afternoon with a long snack and story time, and then Rowen and I took the twins
out for a walk while Mom got some work done.
We followed that up with some play time in the lounge; and it was just
the five of us for dinner and a movie night – at least until Dad got home from Crystal Springs.
We had spaghetti and garlic bread with cheese; followed that up with
Olde Bakery pie and ice cream; cleaned the kitchen; and finished watching Rudolph
the Red-nosed Reindeer by the time Dad joined us. That worked out great for a snack break and
more stories, and then we watched White Christmas together; though Dad, Ethan,
and Ehlana all fell asleep before the end of the movie.
Two out of three of them slept through getting tucked into
bed for the night, and I’ll pretend not to know how long it took Mom to tuck
Dad in before he was sleeping again too. (Hint – their wards are still up right
now.) Rowen was overdue for some Jacuzzi
time, so she did that first after we came up to my room. Mandy and I got the lounge ready for our
sleepover and movie marathon, and had everything ready by the time Rowen was
finished in the bathroom. We decided to
go with the Santa Baby movies tonight, and settled in to watch them while also
surfing on our computers and chatting telepathically so that Mandy could talk
with us – when she wasn’t busy napping.
Rowen needed to talk about ‘Tommy’ a lot, and though he’s
still completely deaf, dumb, and blind to her – probably because he’s having
problems seeing beyond the more advanced ‘scenery’ that Nora provides compared
to either Rowen or me; she was thrilled that he’d loved the Christmas gift
she’d picked out for him. I may need to
block a few key words here for a few extra years to keep certain future readers
from being able to identify the guy, but in case you’re wondering what gift was
such a hit for a boy our age – Rowen got him an NCAA football, autographed by
his current favorite college player. The
way we managed to get that for him is going to be a great story for Rowen to
tell him some day. Let’s just say that
it’s amazing what a couple of small town girls can do with the internet – and
some very helpful family business connections!
We loved having a few hours to just hang out together;
especially since it’s going to be a crazy weekend even without my family home
for Christmas. There will be lots of
work for both of us in the morning, but then I expect that we’ll be spending
the rest of the day playing with Ethan, Ehlana, Kara, Nicole, and Eddie. Nicole’s already in town with her parents and
grandparents; while Kara and Eddie will be here by sometime late in the morning
with their parents. Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne have seven guests tonight, and Aunt Deborah and Uncle Nick have Rob,
Trish, and Nadine staying with them until Boxing Day. The McEwan clan won’t be here until late
Sunday night, but in time for the Christmas Eve day adventures and the best
parts of the holiday fun.
I should also mention some Christmas news from my
family. While her parents, brother,
sister-in-law, nieces and nephew will all be busy doing Christmas with Aunt
Alison’s and Grandma Mercy’s families; Aunt Grace is in Seattle with Mark and
his family for the next five days. She
should have some very entertaining stories for us next weekend! From everything I hear, Mark’s family still
thinks that he’s lost his mind – at least when it comes to the part about
moving to Witch Falls to become a small town doctor and giving up a big city
career that was just starting to take off for him. The Rice family is going to be busy too, and
though I’m sure that Violet is disappointed that she won’t be here for
Christmas; Dillon is going to Woodvale after lunch tomorrow until he needs to
be back here for the Sunday buffets.
Violet and Dawn will be coming here on Boxing Day; and Violet will be
here until the Sunday before we go back to school.
I think that’s about it for tonight. Let’s wrap this up, and I’ll get on with more
holiday movie and chat time with my two best friends.
Say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
