Detritus for the Rest of Us

It's now nearly 5:30, and with the washing of our Christmas dishes from an early Christmas dinner, the holiday is officially over. The kids are upstairs surrounded by their Christmas detritus, busily building one the four or five Lego sets they received from relatives and Jolly old Saint Nick. It's snowed all day, so the roads are closed, the world is close, the skies are dark and all seems right with the world. It's quiet outside, except for the idiots up the street rushing about the pasture on their snowmobiles.

The kids let us sleep in this Christmas, but my bladder was not as charitable. It had me up at eight am -- which isn't too shabby, considering we have three young ones in the house. Of course, we haven't wound them up as much about Christmas morning as Michelle and I were wound as children, so that helps.

Michelle, to prove that she understands her husband's basic guyness, got me Apollo 13 and The Great Escape on DVD. One a modern epic, the other, an epic of epics. These will make for great watching. Who could ask for more except some macho-monkey movies to watch over the holiday?

And yes, we received monkeys, too. Sock Monkeys, made by my sister Maaike (who sells them on her blog, by the way. So click away.) One of them rode home from Oma's house on the steering wheel last night. Lexie thinks they look like bandits, with the dark coloring around their eyes.

Michelle likes her camera. At least I think she does. She hasn't thrown it out yet, so that's a good sign.

I got books. Many books. One called Nemesis, by Max Hastings, from Martin in England (thanks, Martin). Another, Die Alone, by David Howarth. A third, Nuclear Terrorism, by Gramah ALlison. All look like excellent reads.

And I'm feeling tired. So tired. Need a nap. May blog later. But right now, too busy. Sleeping.