One A Day: Gift wrap and Uno

Day 2/365

The kids run with excitement up to the door. The smell of turkey is overpowering. You can smell it outside as you come up the walk. Thoughts of stuffing and turkey with gravy and home made lefse fill my taste buds. Time to be spent with family. Indulge in more food and exchange gifts. Well executed, gifts from the heart. This will be the last Christmas celebration of the year. Then it will lay in wait, until the celebrations of next year fill and warm us. As Christmas always does. The lights, the smells, the activities... all spent with family, bringing us closer together.

As we sit down for lunch, the kids excitement fills the room. The anticipation of opening up one last round of gifts on their minds. The gifts from their great-grandparents. Grandma-great and Papa-great, as they call them. Soon the food is consumed and the dishes are done. The kids darting to the living room. "Can I open mine first?" "No, me!" "My turn first." is shouted all at once. As Grandma hands out the gifts and Papa-great and Grandma-great find their seats, respectively, near each other, of course. The kids start ripping. The paper is flying and the room is filled with cheers and thank yous. Barbie Clothes, a porcelain tea party set and a Cars car carrier and hot wheels cars are hugged close. Gifts that will forever be treasured and played with. Because they come from the heart. Well thought out gifts from Grandma and Papa-great. They beg to have them taken out of the boxes, to play with them. "Not until we get home, we don't want to lose pieces here." I say. "Awe man, mom, please!" They beg. Their minds are diverted to thoughts of sweets and a game of Uno.

We head to the dining room table, get out the deck of cards and Matt starts to shuffle them. Soon the chairs fill and we are ready to start the game. Little did we know.... there was someone sitting on a pile of four leaf clovers, as Grandma-great, would say. Because she was lucky... right off the bat. Winning three hands in a row. We are all hoping she joins the family... and the thought of one day becoming her sister in law fills me with more excitement than I can explain. Because she rocks. And my brother in law deserves someone as wonderful as her. Someone to spend his life with, happily ever after. Yes, Jenny, I am referring to you.

And the card game went on, for hours. Because this is how we gather. Each dealt a hand to play of their own. As is life... a deck of cards, drawing up one at a time to play, and follow our paths. Until they all crossed. I am forever grateful to be a part of such a wonderful family. A family that has been such a blessing to me through the years. The family that my children will create memories with. That they will forever call their own. Their heritage. One couldn't ask for a more awesome set of in-laws. And they are in my deck of cards, the deck of cards that I call life.