“Get up, get up! It’s CHRISTMAS!”
Bess rolls over. “I’ll get up when the boys get up.”
Isaiah, who is 11, runs next door “Guys, get up! It’s after 9!”
“We’re growing. We’ll get up when the girls get up.”
“I’m up,” I say, on Isaiah’s heels. Here it is, the lawful hour of Christmas morning, and we’ve been organizing the presents into piles in anticipation of this day. And nobody moves.
Isaiah and I go downstairs and wait until they come to their senses. Then we get the stockings (why do my parents not get stockings?) and eat pancakes and Dad reads from the Torah (in Hebrew, the word woman comes from the word man, but the word man comes from the word fire) and then we open everything, and I get wool socks and a copy of Hamlet. We’re weirdly excited. Dad likes his dog-eared copy of a French reader, Samuel is ecstatic about his Cadillac belt buckle, Isaiah shrieks while opening a box of goldfish crackers.
Now the boys test out the give of their new clothes by playing football in them. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fight.
Botkin Creative 