The Best Gift?

We’ve reached the end of a long Christmas day, one of the better that we’ve celebrated since moving to Minnesota. We have an honest-to-goodness white Christmas this year, thanks to an early winter and prodigious snowfall this December, the coldest and wettest December in at least ten years. The First Mate and I started celebrating last night, and we’ve continued to celebrate until now — and we have just reached the point of exhaustion.
Michelle Malkin asks her readers to identify the best gift they gave this year. I figured I’d share with you a few different award winners along those lines…
The gift most likely to backfire on me was my son’s didgeridoo. For some reason, he insisted that he wanted to learn the Australian instrument, and so we looked around for a reasonable, good-quality didge. Even our daughter-in-law seemed enthusiastic — until he actually got it today and proceeded to play it for the entire time we were at their house. Banished from the living room, he went upstairs to his bathroom, and found it so well-suited to the sound that he spent the evening trying to get someone to come into the bathroom to listen to him play the didge. Did Larry Craig use that line?
His wife has already reached her limit. He may wind up having to practice here — and hence the risk of backfire.
The gift that brought everyone the most fun was the Little Admiral’s first real digital camera. It’s surprisingly reasonable, designed for kids, well-protected, and comes with a lot of fun features. Here she’s getting her mom to take her picture:

But the gift that gave us the most joy — the best gift we gave — was sharing our Christmas Eve with a close family friend who’s coming out the other end of some tough times. He’s been with us for three years in a row on Christmas Eve, and it’s becoming a Christmas tradition. Our son celebrates with his in-laws on that night, and we would otherwise do nothing special. Our friend gives us a reason to get festive, put on a meal, and bring Christmas a little closer to our hearts.
I hope that your Christmas had all the blessings of ours, and more. Merry Christmas once again.