Christmas-y Goodness

On Christmas Eve we gathered at my mom's house. I was happy to have a new sofa on which to prop my (increasingly less swollen and disfigured leg), a chance to chat with my mom and sisters while the monkeys ran wild with their cousins, and a nap. After a two week sabbatical, Warren was happy to be back in the kitchen. Iron Chef Miki Moto spent almost three hours preparing a sushi feast that completely trumped the mound of gifts amassed under the Christmas tree.

For most of us anyway.

In terms of present opening, Satchel and his seven-year-old cousin, Sutton, were particularly rabid. They had been in charge of making everyone's present piles and once complete, couldn't wait to tear into their own giant stacks. "I have thirteen!" Sutton chirped.

"I have eleventy hundred!" Satchel countered.

We have a long standing present opening process in place, but Satchel did not care one bit. Nor did Sutton, apparently. Since the gifts were clearly in sight, the most awesomely motivating, "If you want to get Christmas presents this year, you better _________" was no longer of use. Every time I turned my head, Satchel was ripping into something new.

"Satchel, please wait for your daddy to finish making the sushi before opening your presents!" I whined to no avail.

"Sutton! Slow down and at least look at what you are opening!" my sister barked ineffectually.

"Remember when everyone used to open one present at a time and we all got to see what everyone had?" my mom pined pathetically.

We let Satchel, Sutton, and my ten-year-old nephew Branch, open all their gifts as fast as they could and then sent them away to play while we ate sushi and slowly opened ours. (At some point Jiro sauntered in and inquired if he had any gifts. Once I opened his new DVD, Cars, he squealed and ran off toward the DVD player.)

"Uh, yeah, uh, these are not at all what I wanted," my brother-in-law said when opening my sister's gift to him.

"A meat thermometer?" my mom said as she opened her gift from Team Oster. (Warren did our shopping this year.)

"Why did you get me this?" my sister hissed as she opened a gold angel for her car from my mom.

"Maybe because you almost died in a car accident the day after our birthday and you just bought a new car two days ago?" I offered as I opened the star of David candle holder my mom got me and tried to fake a big smile. (Clearly my mom was forced to purchase gifts from the White Station Middle School holiday catalog.) "Is it any wonder our kids act like such shits when opening gifts?"

We had a little laugh over that, filled our margarita glasses, and carried on. In the end, everyone got at least one thing they liked and the kids were happily running around trying out all of their new toys.

To top off the evening, I crawled in my mom's bed and put in the video from the Roller Derby bout that Duchess de Muertas gave me the week before. (I have no VCR.) I watched with my heart pounding. I was soon joined by my mom, my nephew, my sister, my niece, and the monkeys. Through the million questions being launched at me from the under ten crowd, I was able to see that the Z-girls did in fact play a very good game and that the score really wasn't as bad as I remembered--at least not until the third period.

Over the last ten days, I've had many conversations regarding my injury and discussed various theories on the cause. The most popular one being that my skate and/or toestop got lodged in the track lighting, thus causing my tibia and fibula to break. Initially I had just thought that it was a freak accident in which I was heading one way and got knocked another. After viewing the fatal blow over and over and over and over, I have come to the conclusion that my initial suspicions were correct. While my skate clearly hits the track and causes my foot to spin out at a bizarre angle, it happens after it is already broken. I was in a slack position looking backwards when the Duchess hit me hard on the right. I braced myself with my left foot, but instead of helping the situation, it only hurt it.

I like knowing it was a freak accident. Freak accidents are few and far between. If my skate had actually gotten stuck on the track like most people think, then that would nag at me and make me fear the track. Strangely calm, I gathered up the monkeys, Miki Moto, and our Christmas booty and headed home to get ready for Santa and get a good night's sleep.

And dream of returning to the track.