All the kids, and the kids of the kids with kids, gathered at our house for a little early Santa gathering. It was great to see everyone and hang out for much of the day, and as with all family gatherings, some slices of disappointment.

As children of divorced parents with divorced parents, holiday gatherings can be tough. Especially if some of those parents subsequently remarried and maybe divorced again. How many holiday claims can be made, and which take precedence? We try not to overwhelm our older kids, or the grandkids they're raising, with expectations of visiting us on our schedules. We know how hard early parenting is, because our second pass of kids are in the middle ages of the grandkids!

So when the "week early" Christmas offering, with a pared-down "kids only" Secret Santa was offered, we gladly accepted. The older daughter and wife worked to coordinate the bulk of it with the older son, and I just tried to keep up and help with the shopping and hosting, and midnight gift wrapping. They negotiated that only the little kids get gifts, with the kids being assigned a recipient for a Secret Santa, and then the adults would gift to each of the other family's kids, leaving home family gift-giving for another day. Seemed easy enough.

We felt good after doing a round of Secret Santa shopping with the kids last Saturday. We tried to try to steer them into a single bigger thing, or a few smaller (hopefully) themed things, and while we did end up dealing with some pleading for stuff of their own, we ended up feeling pretty good about the endeavor. Then it was revealed that we'd apparently read the list backwards! Our Secret Santa partners were not arranged as "Santa gives to elf" but "elf gets from Santa." So we got set to set out with another shopping trip! We weren't too put out as we hadn't completed the "grandparents give to grandkids" shopping yet, but we were a bit "ugh, taking the kids shopping during the week is so hard." We're done with work around 5PM, pick up the little little from his after school fun time about a half-hour later, fit dinner and a little face time in, and then bedtime tries to start about 7:30. There wasn't time to relive the hours-long excursion we had last weekend jammed into one or more weekday nights!

In the end, it was agreed to leave the list in "Santa gives to elf" order, as the other household that had shopped read it the same way, so only the household that hadn't shopped yet had to shift their thinking. I did make a couple dashes to a few stores to fill out gifts from grandparents, and to pad some of the smaller themed stuff sets. Finally getting everything settled, I was tasked with gift wrapping, but through some miscommunication where I didn't realize the dining room table (which had been holding cooling cookies) was free, I didn't get a start until the wife turned in closer to 11PM.

The wife prepped for early day food and sweets after. That meant making a few batches of cookies, which had been cooling on the dining room table. She had also gathered a ton of fruit, and prepared a cheesy potato dish and a delicious oven-baked French toast we don't get often because of how much has to be made. Cookies were baked, breakfast prepped, the house was clean, the tree decorated, gifts wrapped and stacked. All we had left was the waiting and hosting. Even the weather was friendly enough to make a thick blanket of snow on everything, although it also brought some uncomfortable cold, and forced some blended activities like shoveling and salting the sidewalks.

We're also a "cousin" family to one of the school district's visiting Amity interns. At a few of the schools in and around our school district, student teachers from around the world are invited to our schools (and some host family homes) to bring exchanges of culture and language, making the world a little more closer for everyone. Last year we hosted a wonderful teacher from Colombia. This year we're a little more on the side with someone hosted in another home. She's traveling back to Spain for the holidays, so she'll miss the holiday celebrations here, so we invited her to our weird little thing. I picked her up and returned about 8:30AM, and the excitement was already palatable in our littles, as their older siblings and their kids were due any minute.

Everyone else arrived in the next half hour or so. A calamity of boots and jackets. In a frequent Minnesota unfortunate design, our front door opens directly into our front room, so every door opening dropped the temperature. It all sorted quickly. The snow, despite the shoveling, collected on everyone's footwear, which ended up tucked off to the side in the room we would eventually be using the most. There was some milling about and reconnecting after a couple months had passed since our last chance to have everyone together.

We gathered around our barely big enough table in our dining room that's a little too small for the table when it has its extension leaf in it. Thankfully the dining room and living room are separated by a big arch, and share a long hardwood floor, so no one notices or calls it out when the people sitting on that end are really in the next room. Food was had, and it was festive and fun and delicious. Only a little complaining about the holiday spiced coffee, with its aroma of cinnamon and vanilla.

Then we turned to the Secret Santa and gifts events. The mob decided to go with the Secret Santa giving their gifts to their elves, starting with the youngest elf. Rounds of glee and thanks and laughing, as everyone hoped for. Then we let it descend into kid chaos, as the gifts from families (or adults, however it ended up phrased) to the other house kids were distributed and kind of opened as fast and furiously as decided. Everyone was joyed and thankful and pleasant and giddiness prevailed, as everyone hoped for.

That lasted until my little little realized my bigger little got more stuff than he had. He liked everything he got and was thankful, but his bigger sister got a little bit of a themed thing and it had a bit more bulk. I eased his perceived slight by taking the time during the post gifting, toy opening and play time, by reading the superhero book he'd been given. We also celebrated the awesome zip-all-the-way-up hoodie he got that turned him into a Minecraft creeper. Then he turned his attention to playing with his nephews, as they had opened a kit of Transformers, so he helped them fight with his new squishy Spider-man. Crisis averted, although he would bring up that it felt a little unfair a couple times later.

After the gifting and a little clean-up, the wife left with the intern to go to the NFL game. The intern hasn't been to one, although she enjoys it on TV. We have season tickets, which are more for the wife than me (which surprises so many people...I just prefer baseball), so I was happy to let her go in my place. It turned out that a couple other interns were also going, and it happened that they met up at halftime, and the wife coaxed them into joining in our much better seats (ours are 10 rows up from the field, while theirs were a in the top deck) as it seems the seat neighbors never showed up.

Not too long after, the adult boy child and his family took the grand boys home for some calming time and probably naps. The adult girl child and her kids stayed with us to watch the game and let the kids play a little more. The kids flexed from "watching" with us (which usually meant playing on a tablet or phone while we watched the game on the TV) to playing in other rooms. A delightfully peaceful playtime, I think eased by the always available piles of fruit and cookies.

The game was monstrous. The Vikings hosted the Colts. The Colts dominated the first half of the game, leading into the half 33-0. We had all but given up, and embraced half-time for a little late lunch; the daughter needed some alone time, so she ran for some take-out, and we ate while the game resumed in the other room. The Vikings came back and took almost half of the third quarter to score their first touchdown, followed by a Colts field goal. We missed all of that, and settled in to watch what happened next. We had missed the beginning of what turned out to be Vikings domination, as they triumphed and got the necessary four unanswered touchdowns with a two-point conversion, to tie the game at 36 points each, leading to overtime. A bitter battle ending in a Vikings field goal to win 36-39, and become the biggest comeback in NFL history! And this with two or three, likely to be discussed widely, controversial calls against the Vikings that resulted in arguably overturning three other big plays, including two touchdowns after recovering fumbles. A bunch of career and league highs hit in what felt like a certain soul-crushing game by halftime.

Immediately after the game ended on television, as in during the "joining game in progress" announcement after the final score was announced, the kids started their repeated requests to return to the visitors' hotel to engage in a little swimming at the hotel pool. We said we'd wait for mom/grandma to come home, and then decide about food and swimming, assuming the good behavior remained. The visitors took off to see if they could find swimsuits that they'd all forgotten to pack) and we waited for mom to arrive. It took a lot of patience, but eventually (and when expected) mom did get home, the pounce for food and swimming began. We let mom wind down just a little and waited for word from the others, because swimming without suits wasn't really an option, so it could mean "just dinner" if they weren't successful. They were successful, so we piled in the car and took off. We met at a pizza place for food, then to their hotel for swimming and more cookies. I'd never had Crumbl cookies, and the daughter raves, so she got some to share with me and try to convert me. I don't really need converting, as I'm always a fan of a good cookie.

The kids swam, the adult kid hot-tubbed, and we old adults sat dry nearby. After what seemed long enough, we retired back to their room to redress and prepare before setting off into the night to return home. We overstayed by a few minutes, as our youngest started shouting and growling, so we made our escape. Tensions were high, and worsened a little on the realization that tomorrow's plans were for the adult women and a couple of the daughters were going to see The Nutcracker ballet that our friends' kids are in. The boy child was so tired he was crying mad that he couldn't go. He was out in minutes after getting home, and I'm sure that come morning, he won't want to go anyway.

Everyone else turned in, tired, after a day well-spent with family we don't get to see often enough. We've got other family we haven't seen often, some since the pandemic began, and some more even longer. We should try to get better about that.

Everyone's healthy.