It’s been an amazing few days, and I’m finally surfacing at about 2:50 am, Tuesday Morning.

The party at school was fun – Santa was a bit “backward” as they say here in Southwestern Indiana. He should have played a retiring angel or perhaps a statue in a garden someplace. But I think the kids had a really nice time and the gifts were perfect.

A great thanks to all the families for all the help. Thanks especially to Katio’s mom for sweeping all the floors and reminding me how the Japanese clean at the end of the year! I don’t know if that was informational or suggestive.

Thanks to Tami who sent this picture. The ladies are the heart of the school.

We closed school for the year about 4:30. It has been a very interesting Christmas season and continued after the party.

On Friday, we gave Edith a going away party – just to take her mind off traveling. We served shrimp curry with fourteen eleven sideboys and baked salmon, exchanged a few gifts and had a nice evening at my house.

Amid making every kind of Christmas cookie I could think of for eight hours on Saturday, I took Edith to the airport. I worried all day about Edith traveling across the pacific and Anne flying in from Sharjah. In fact, I worried myself into a sick tizzy. Then, after the tizzy I heard that Anne had missed her flight, but was scheduled to come in on Christmas Day. That was about as nervously upsetting as anything I can think of.

We got up early Christmas day, fed the animals at school, Edith’s cats, and headed out to the Louisville airport. Her flight from New York was canceled because of weather as we walked into the airport, and we waited on Christmas Day for eight hours at the airport for something to come in from JFK. She finally arrived at 9:00 pm. I was so glad to see her safe sound beautiful and elegant as she made her way from the terminal.

We actually had a magnificent Christmas on Monday. It was warm and wonderful except the furnace went out at school, and I had to turn off the power. Glad I was there. It set off the smoke alarms.

I heard from Edith that the trip was wonderful, that she loves Australian and that she is having the time of her life. That’s so neat. Regis and Cassandra will be married on New Years Eve.

It’s always a comedy of errors. Life is always a battleground of emotions. The buffer? The little guys. Jackie and Wilbur saved my emotional life yesterday. Their enjoyment of Christmas, their joy at the robots, the drum set, the cars that shoot, the mega max, the art sets, the dinosaurs that bite, and the Christmas train set of mine Wilbur is determined to dismantle made me relax and made us all laugh. When Will ate all the chocolate kisses off the turban cookies silently, secretly pulling them quietly from the tray and putting the cookie back, it was hilarious. Rob counted twelve toppled turbans. He’s so two.

Their little faces were wonderful. It’s a big Christmas because the belief system is still intact. Santa is a marvelous fellow and Jack made sure he left a key under the mat because his family doesn’t have a fire place. It was his idea.

Willie was truly surprised by his gifts. He seemed to like the remote praying mantis best.

Miss Molly gave me a delightful book on puppets. I’m already looking forward to beginning. It should be fun. Did you know you can make the most wonderful puppets out of dish soap containers?

Hoping everyone reading had a marvelous Christmas.