Christmas Day

I hope and pray that all of you had a blessed and safe Christmas. Mine was very good. It is always a good day in my house when we can open up the Word of God and read of His Grace, Love and Mercy.

This year was much different than past Christmas’s. Since I have a paper route I had to deliver it before any Christmas festivities could happen. I was fortunate to have the help of my daughter. It was a lot of fun to have her with me. I don’t get much father-daughter alone time with her so this was a cherished time for me. Before I start to tell you about the fun we had, just know this, she is her mother’s daughter. If you have been following this blog at all over the past month or so you will understand this comment. If you are new to this blog then do your heart some good and read some of the early blogs when Suzi was doing the route with me.

The route actually started earlier than normal because it was Christmas. For Christmas the papers are off the press by 8:30 pm, this meant we could deliver them anytime after that. It seemed kind of odd to me that you could deliver the Christmas paper on Christmas Eve, but I’m not one to complain about such petty things. I figured I would go in at about 10:30 pm and fold the papers and be done with my route around midnight. This was a special thing to me, because it meant that I could get 8 consecutive hours of sleep. On our way home from celebrating Christmas with my parents Corrine asked if she could go with me. As I contemplated my 8 consecutive hours of sleep, I thought about how much more time I would have with her. You see she is a junior in High School and will be off to college in a couple of years so I told her she could come. She was quite the trooper too; she came in a folded the papers as well as delivered them with me. Now up to now some of you might be thinking “enough of the sappy dad stuff. Where is the funny stuff? You said she was her mother’s daughter.” Well the funny stuff started once we left the warehouse. When we started she was trying to figure out how to throw the paper. No big deal I thought, just tell her it’s like throwing a Frisbee. Well after a couple of papers in the gutter (Note: when I drive I am almost on top of the gutter, so when you throw it in the gutter this constitutes a throw of about 6” to 1’ in distance) and a period of traveling at 2-4mph (Note: remember I like to drive like a NASCAR driver when I am delivering) I decided that a new course of action was needed. From here I started to show her by example. Things got much better until…..she threw the paper and didn’t let go of the bag. This was hilarious for three reasons. Reason one, the paper came out of the bag and went into a million directions. Newspaper all over the place! If that wasn’t bad enough (reason two) the customer was still up and saw the whole thing. I cleaned up every bit of flung paper out of their driveway under their careful watch and gave them a new one in tact. I do believe reason three though is the coup de grace. She then told me, once I got back into the car, that even though she had the plastic bag in her hand that she let go of the paper. She was truly puzzled and perplexed at the fact that when you hang on to the plastic bag the paper comes out all by itself. She then insisted that she let go of the bag. I tried to explain to her the simple physiological fact that when she let’s go of the bag it leaves. It does not stay in your hand. So for the remainder of the route she tried to justify what had happened. Now let me rewind a little so that I can preface the next funny thing that happened that night. When I go out most mornings it’s probably in the 30’s and the cold weather is such that I need to wear a beanie cap and gloves. You know 30 degrees at 15-20 mph can be pretty cold. Well this night it was probably in the upper 40’s so I saw no reason to wear my beanie or my gloves so I put them on the console between Corrine and I. OK now let’s get back to where I left off. Corrine and I were done for the night and had just pulled into the garage when I realized that I only had one glove in the car. I know I distinctly remember bring two in and even Corinne agreed. Well as she and I went through the car and the night we realized that she must have thrown it out of the car with one of the papers. I couldn’t believe it! She had thrown one of gloves with a newspaper. All I could think of was that I wished I would have known we were giving out presents while on the route, because I would have given that customer both gloves. I mean other the Michael Jackson everyone wears two gloves. What a way to end the night. Now back home at 1:00 am and being pretty much wide awake due to the thought of flying papers and someone picking up their paper and finding my glove with it, I had to slow myself down so that I could get maybe 6-7 consecutive hours of sleep. Well I enjoyed myself just the same and I would not trade it for anything.

Now stay tuned for more adventures with Corrine. This time I will be taking a few of her friends with me. That should be good enough to provide me with at least two blogs worth of material. See ya then!