Mama and Papa Hon showed up on our doorstep the weekend before Christmas. There was a collective firing up of ovens in preparation for seeing each other. Laurie and Don arrived with breakfast casserole, Frosted Heroine, peanut M&M's, espresso toffee, peanut butter buckeyes, and homemade muscadine sauce, and Dad had a full supper on the table when they arrived. Buncha feeders.
The Holiday Shanghai Tournament began around 10pm. We put on a James Taylor radio station and tried our hardest to focus on the game even though we were all talking over each other about life. We noted that we've haven't seen each other so close to Christmas before and the added red velvet details and sparkly glittering trees made it all feel extra special. We promptly began discussing our future existence on "The Compound" - a farmlife-lite style cultish existence, ideally on Wadmalaw Island, where upon each family has their own home on the perimeters of the "Club House, where we will play cards and eat things until we all die. Brett isn't sold on the idea - he knows he'd be the groundskeeper as everyone else descended into decrepitude. We snacked and hummed. Dad blamed his unintellectual comments on his medication and Don provided background bass and obtuse musings.
Because they are beaming light sources of peacefulness, we had Springtime weather while the Hons were here. Will, Kate, and Evan had to sit this one out on account of moving to Richmond VA on that very weekend. Instead we brought over Georgie, Gigs, and Dave for a lowcountry boil. Ellen, Lee, and Brett were there too but they had to sit at the kids table in the other room. At the dinner table, we told stories of travel mishaps and bathroom blowouts. These are the things that matter.
A visit highlight was a boat outing with Uncle Dave. The grownups went to a late breakfast at James Island's newest eatery, and then we met Uncle Dave at the marina just in time for low tide. We all stared at the boat landing with its few inches of wiggling water. "This'll be fine," someone said, and then Dave backed the boat right on down and sure enough, it floated.
The Union clan thought it was chilly but the Hon's think we're just a bunch of sandlapper weenies.
We puttered and sped all through the harbor, spending a long chunk of time watching a containership make its way to the port. We passed by Brett's biggest engineering project to date, the raising of the Battery Wall, and all noted that it doesn't look any taller. We bobbed passed neighbor Jeff in a friend's boat, peeked in on the Tetanus Party Boat, and then came on in from the "harsh" elements.
I like this next blurry picture because it looks like Don is recoiling from me, which is what I imagine most people wish they could do when I approach with thoughts and questions. At this moment though, Don was telling me about Woodrow Wilson, and I remember this because I wondered what made him think of U.S. presidents in the first place. I think it all started with Taft, but Don was sitting up there by himself so it must have been his own stream of consciousness.
But you know I showed up bright and early on Sunday morning to soak up the last few nuggets of wisdom. First the Hon's planned to go to church before they headed home, then everyone decided to watch church from home, and then, before we knew it, we had talked through the whole thing. Laurie told us all about Evan, Dad talked back surgery, I told them about the time decided to be a life coach and wound up chatting with a handicapped, wannabe trans-person with a bad attitude, and Mom made sure the coffee pot never went empty.
Ooh what a cozy warm way to wrap up a year. Until our next Christmas on the compound...
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