And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.

For this mom and dad, the wait is over. The kids' holiday (i.e., Christmas; I honestly have no preference for the semantics here) break began Friday, 21-December-2007, and ended when Amalie returned to class yesterday (Tuesday 08-January-2008), with Carson resuming his taxing daycare curriculum today.

It was a very good break indeed.

On that first Friday, Amalie had a class at Central Market's cooking school -- decorating her own gingerbread house. Her results were lovely, and we couldn't bring ourselves to so much as touch it.

On Saturday 12/22, Amalie and I made a huge double batch of toll house cookies, making the entire house smell sweetly caloric. On Sunday, Carson and I visited a few friends I hadn't seen in a while, handing out festive tins of the cookies along with cards. It's not something I do often enough, really.

Christmas Day itself was an exciting but leisurely affair. Val and I actually got in some sleep this time, and everyone woke up within ten minutes of each other. The easy chairs in the family room caught Amie's eye, each stacked with gifts, so after quickly sorting out which chair was for her and which was for Carson, away they went. We impose a not-very-strict "one gift at a time, take turns" policy, so it took some time to empty both chairs, followed by a tactical strike by the kids on their stockings (unusual, as the stockings are usually last -- one year we didn't get to them until the 26th -- but we don't usually start in the family room anyway). After that frenzy was over, we broke for breakfast and phone calls, then turned to the tree in the front room. Amalie can guess-read tags, so she was in charge of first distribution (the grownups validated her interpretations) for a while. One large pile of wrapped gifts slowly gave way to four smaller piles of goodies and one tsunami of crumpled paper and ribbons. We did finish before sundown (and this is not because of the sheer volume of stuff -- this was a notably smaller hoard than in years past; but taking turns also takes time). Lunchtime sort of breezed by, with Val providing a snack tray, and around dinnertime no one was hungry, as our Christmases tend to inspire day-long munching of both goodies and conscientiously nutritious stuffs, and the general adrenaline rush just pushes everyone along as well. Finally, we returned to the stockings, and Val and I emptied ours. I found (hadn't paid attention earlier) that I also had a tiny bonus stocking, with moose on it, in which was a small chocolate bar (dark chocolate, of course).

A brief and incomplete summary of the haul:
Amalie: a hand-held game cartridge system, a scooter, dolls and doll clothes and things, a large dollhouse (not for Barbies), some games, and a pink-handled small Swiss Army knife. And a selection of DVD movies, heavily weighted toward Disney Princess material.

Carson: cars -- oh man, lots and lots of cars, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Tonka, Pixar Cars movie cars, two giant carriers trucks. Hot Wheels track (plain, basic stuff found on eBay, not some tricked-out, branded set all the stores carry). Two RC cars, the noises of which scare him (luckily one has a mute switch). A kid-sized basketball hoop. A Pixar Cars toybox/bench. Larger sweat pants and socks, since he's growing like a weed. And a selection of DVD movies.

Val: an air compressor, pajamas, the traditional Iditarod medallion for 2008, the similarly traditional tiny (four sweets) box of Godiva chocolates (devoured by the whole family in a record two minutes), a laser level (nothing says "I love you" like power tools), and a selection of DVD movies.

me: Red Sox championship card sets, a couple of baseball books (I always get some), two commemorative baseballs, moccasins, a Rubik's new thingie the kids have already confiscated, some hand tools, several kitchen cooking widgets (egg separator, new measuring cups, chopsticks with holders, etc.), and a selection of DVD movies, including the 2007 World Series.

On the 27th, rested and ready, we ventured forth (at 4:00 pm...) toward Mississippi to visit Val's sister Jenny and her husband Dickie Joe. It's a long hike, just short of 600 miles, and even with an early start it makes for a very long day, so on the trip out (we go at least once a year) we plan on one night's stay somewhere. This time it was Beaumont, Texas, almost to the state line; we could have gone further but the kids were tired, and it's not fair to push them to keep traveling without need. We made decent time, mainly because driving through Houston was rather quiet, being holiday time. We set out the next day before 9:00 am (rather amazing, that) but it was slow going -- our breakfast stop ran longer than it should, as we built in a play stop at a very nice park in Jennings, Louisiana. This wasn't as much fun as we'd hoped, owing to heavy rains the night before leaving plenty of puddles, but the kids romped well. Just before leaving, I pulled off the road for a restroom stop, and this was a mistake -- just off the road was quite muddy, and I ignorantly got the car completely off the road by about four inches, which was just enough to mire it down. Four inches! I got out to push, Val took the wheel, but we'd have been there longer were it not for a passing local who understood our issue and offered to help push. Working together, we were back on the road in five seconds; I thanked him dearly, he just nodded graciously, and we were all on our way again. There's still some mud on the front fender where the right side front wheel was kicking it up in futility. Later, some breakdowns on a bridge also slowed things down; what should have been a six-hour drive stretched into almost ten. But we made it at last.

Visiting Jenny and Dickie Joe on their ranch is always relaxing. It is roomy, quiet, they are wonderful hosts, and there are cows to look at. The front pasture, this time, was home to only two bovines, a pair of black Angus bulls they'd bought for breeding in the spring. Both were under two years old, and though they were a bit trepidacious of us, when we watched feeding time from afar they acted like puppies, running and bouncing in delight. This is very entertaining behavior when performed by 1200 pound animals.

Our first full night in Mississippi, there was a tremendous thunderstorm, real roof-rattling, rolling thunderclaps. Some were sufficiently close to be full-fledged booms. I went out on the porch to watch for a bit -- the rain wasn't very heavy, curiously -- and happened to be looking in the right direction to see a direct strike, the clap of which hit me (and I mean hit me) in about 1.5 seconds, so that was plenty close. The storm finally passed sometime after midnight.

We spent one afternoon touring some of the coastline near Gulfport, which had been ravaged by Katrina in 2005. It is slowly recovering; sobering and encouraging at once.

We took our leave early on January 1, hoping that the drunkards were off the roads by now. Since we don't have to worry about arriving too late when getting home, we try to go for the one-day push, and we made it. Houston again gave us little problem, and since New Year's Day is an out-and-about type of holiday, there was no problems finding restaurants. A long and tiring day, but getting home makes it worthwhile.

Val returned to work later in the week, leaving me in charge of the kids for another few days. We ran a few errands, but otherwise finished out the school break in humdrum fashion at home.

School's back in session. Amalie got her second period report card, identical to the first.