Characteristically, though, Dad was asleep even before the excitement.
I didn't have my kiddos Christmas day this year, which freed me up to recklessly photograph the mayhem. A niece and six nephews, many of whom are in a deadly-tight cluster (including a pair of twins) who are in a conspiracy to hit college at the same time to ensure the financial ruin of my step-siblings.
My bro played the glass harmonica and next thing, all my nieces and nephews were playing the crystal.
I played four games of Battleship with the niece, usually referred to as Em's favorite cousin. It was fun to explore the psychology of Battleship, a game I haven't played since I was her age. She's an edge player, and once you find a boat on the edge, it's fish in a bucket.
Me, I'm a clusterer. I never put my boats at the edge, but I always put them touching somehow.
I brought beer: the Boulevard Smokestack Series that I got the great freelance gig from is out. I brought a bottle of the Tripel and the Quadrupel. The Tripel was an unqualified hit. My step-brother-in-law (I guess that's what he is) even liked it. It's similar to Chimay's Tripel but at about two thirds the price. The Quad was brought out with dessert to only slightly less universal praise.
After we all ate too much, there was the exchange of gifts. I had worried about one of my nephew's gifts: it was Star Wars stuff because that's the entire universe to him now, but I'd debated between action figures. Then I hear, 'Suh-Weeet! Han Solo! Yeah!' and I knew it was all good.
He got an incredible pop-up book (not from me), a staggering array of die cutting. It'd take me most of a year to tool the dies for this, and I've tooled my share of dies.
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