Merry Christmas to All

Christmas has come and gone and once again I’m in line for the laziest blogger of the year award.  I won’t bother with excuses, because they’re like asses.  Everybody has one; some are simply more amusing than others.

Christmas this year was way different than any of us had ever experienced.  The Russian was very concerned about how Daddy Baba (aka Santa Claus) was going to get here with no snow.  Fortunately there are several Australian children’s books cover that very topic, the most commonly agreed upon version is that Santa arrives in Oz with his reindeer and lets them have a rest while he uses kangaroos to make his deliveries in the summer heat.  Our specific version is that the reindeer were resting at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and six, big white kangaroos, known as boomers, were doing the work in the hot Aussie summer.  This works out well with the Aussie Christmas carol “Six White Boomers”.

I’ve always had a tendency to over think and over engineer many of the aspects in my life; spending all day everyday with a little person is magnifying that situation.  SO – this is how we ended up with a mini blizzard in our living room in the middle of the summer in the Australian Outback.  I had seen these incredible paper snowflakes in a restaurant in Russia last year and someone there had been kind enough to show me how they were made and give me one to use as a pattern.  I have time on my hands and a serious lack to intellectual mental stimulation, so after I get Dennis and Dave tucked in at night, I stayed up for hours making a few dozen paper snowflakes.  Some were the regular ones we all made as kids, where you fold the paper then cut different shapes; others were the 3D versions ranging in size from 6 inches up to 20 inches across.  They were all strung onto fishing line and hung from the living room ceiling.  Every time the AC kicks on the flakes flutter and produce a rather magical effect.

I hosted a book club meeting shortly before Christmas and ended up running a crash course in snow flake making at the end of the meeting.

In past years we had a Christmas stick instead of a tree, but friends demanded and we agreed that the Russian needed a Christmas tree even if it was artificial.  We were gifted an such a tree by someone who wanted to clear out their spare room and with a little creativity, we did a decent job of filling our government issue home with its wonky floor plan situated in the middle of the desert in the sweltering heat with holiday cheer.

During the lead up to Christmas, the Russian was asked repeatedly what he wanted Santa to bring him and the one constant was “a cake” and often he asked that Santa come and eat cake with him.  As indicted previously in this post, I’ve been known to over think things, SO arranged to borrow a Santa costume, recruit someone to fill it and baked and decorated a devils food two layer cake with butter cream icing, decorated with Christmas trees and poinsettias and the lettering “Merry Christmas Dennis”.  Everything was organized for a Christmas morning delivery. 

On Christmas Eve, my friend Lori, who also adopted a child from Russia, called to wish us a Merry Christmas and I mentioned Dennis wanting a cake from Santa and she tells me about Christmas that at her daughters orphanage.  Like most orphanages, there wasn’t enough money for to receive gifts from Father Frost a.k.a. Daddy Baba, but he did making an appearance and handed out cupcakes to each of the children. 

By no means would I consider myself wealthy, but as a product of the land of plenty, I assumed he wanted some amazing creation; it was incredibly humbling to realize that the only thing my son wanted from Santa for was a simple cupcake.  It brought a tear to my eye and warmth to my heart to remember that the wants of many of the people in this world are so simple.

After that, the cake I had lovingly baked seemed ostentatious, but I had the bloody thing done, the required clothing and the delivery organized, SO…. on Christmas morning at about 11 am, the phone rang with a call from Santa to say that while the roos were taking their nap at the Alice Springs Desert Park, he had cleaned out the sleigh in preparation for the trip back to Sydney and he discovered a cake that he had forgotten to leave at our house. Since the roos were still a sleep, Santa asked Dave to come pick him up so that he could deliver the cake in person. (yes I know I need a job)

Our little Russian is usually quite gregarious and social, but the presence of such a revered figure in his home left him in total awe and very shy.  He didn’t utter a sound while Santa was here and wouldn’t even look him in the eye.  The excitement happened afterward and listening to him tell the story was worth every bit of the effort that went into making it happen.  As time went by, the story of the Christmas cake became more elaborate and way more creative. At one point he decided that the reindeers had made the cake and stirred the batter with their antlers.

Although all he asked for was cake, I think he enjoyed all the little extras Santa left.