Christmas in April

If you have little kids in the house, especially twins, be careful what they wish for. The other day, Luke and Aaron were asking about Christmas. They wanted to know when it was going to come. Considering that it was April, I was hoping for a bit of a rest from the holiday period. I had to explain to them that we still had to get through spring, summer, and fall before we would see Christmas again. Considering how severe our winter had been, and all the furnace troubles that we had had, I was looking forward to the journey. I told them that we would probably go camping in the summer. They liked that idea a lot, and I thought that that was the end of that conversation.

But then I heard on the news that we had snow on the way again, after we had spent two weeks in our shorts working in the garden. Once again the conversation turned back to Christmas. Later that night, I woke to the sound of Aaron with a croupy cough. Ah yes, winter is back! After attending to him, I noticed that the house felt like it was unusually cold. I had become the furnace sleuth after the long winter, listening every time that it came on and wondering if it would be the last time. My wife frequently caught me staring intently into the heat registers. �

Well, here we go again, the snow was falling like a blizzard outside, the kids were sick, and our furnace wouldn�t fire up. My vain attempts to get it working failed, and it seemed like I was reliving my worst fears of the winter months once again. I was glad that winter was gone, or was it?

The kids woke up to a raging fire in the fireplace. They were bouncing up and down. Then looking out the window they started talking about Christmas again and snowmen. Surely the snow must bring with it presents! I explained to my wife why I had started the fire as we both cursed our furnace. �Oh well,� I said, �At least you are getting the fire in the fireplace that you so wanted this winter.�

After an hour or so of grumbling we decided to �make the best of it.� We got the winter clothes back out of storage and began the dressing of the kids. I followed them outside and discovered that the snow was the perfect texture for making a snowman. The boys were thrilled as we rolled out four enormous snowballs and piled them up on top of each other. But the snowman needed something. My old hat had been put away so we settled for a knit hat that had never been worn seriously because when worn it transformed the wearer into a weird-looking person with a purple afro. I noticed that all our beautiful tulips and daffodils had disappeared under wet blobs of snow.

The boys went back inside and drank hot chocolate. I stayed out and started carrying in logs for the fire. A few days earlier we had wondered what we were going to do with all that old wood. Now I knew. When I came back in the fire was raging. The house temperature was holding steady at about 60 degrees. The kids didn�t seem to notice. Joel, now five months old, seemed content.

We decided to play the �little house on the prairie thing� to the hilt. The kids got out the tent to sleep in, while we pulled out the sofa bed in front of the fireplace. I went to the store and bought hotdogs, while Jeanette got out the campfire forks. It was camping, but with all the amenities. The kids got to watch a movie on TV. We had flush toilets and a real kitchen. We ate hotdogs cooked over the fire and roasted marshmallows for desert. Then when bedtime came there were ghost stories, the usual books, and teeth brushing. Of course it took another hour for the boys to go to sleep as they giggled and wrestled on until 10:00pm. Our protestations and threats proved useless. When we finally got to bed we put Joel in his car seat and lay down in front of the roaring fire. Every few hours I woke to put new wood on the fire and worry a bit about whether the pipes would freeze. Occasional coughs from the boys filled the house.

I woke to a cold, lighted room and went to get more wood. Jeanette decided that we need a fitting breakfast, so the boys woke to pancakes and bacon. I called the furnace man at eight o�clock and he was already on the way. It turned out to be a bad igniter, no big deal. I got dressed and got ready to go to work. It was Monday morning. Looking outside the green grass and flowers were already showing though the snow. Outside the spring bird calls were deafening, and the snowman was already half melted and leaning at a precarious angle. It all seemed like a bad dream, but it felt like a weekend away at home--Christmas in April.

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