Homespun Christmas

Last year we finished a family room in our basement one week before Christmas. I don't know quite why we call it a family room, in actuality it is a shrine that houses our "family Christmas gift", a 46" flat screen television. In truth I rarely go down to that room. Not because I don't like it, (I almost have it decorated to my specifications) but because I rarely sit and watch television. With a room separate from the rest of my house I can't go in and out of it putting things away, or make dinner while a movie is on. It wouldn't make sense to fold the laundry while watching TV downstairs because my laundry room is upstairs. So I guess the newly, almost finally decorated room makes me uneasy. What? I have to do nothing but sit here and watch TV? I don't think I've watched a movie without doing something domestic in my house, or for my house in fourteen years. Who has the time?
So this year my husband and I decided to put the family room to good use, we were going to celebrate Christmas in it.
We set up two Christmas trees. One upstairs which is decked out with new decorations and to the vision of my husband (Everything new. Everything in traditional red and traditional green). Which I found endearing he had so much interest in the look of the Christmas tree we were going to showcase in our front room window. The second tree was of course put up in the basement. This was our sentimental/kid-friendly tree adorned with homemade ornaments and paper ones the kids made at school over the years. We even bought colored lights for this tree, it just seemed a little more whimsical with bright lights.
Christmas Eve, the kids are finally in bed, and pretending to be asleep. We have finished wrapping the gifts and were transporting them from under the grand tree to the basement tree. We were deeply concerned because we didn't buy large amounts of toys this year. We decided to invest in a Wii and bought each child a few games to go with it and then bought token toys (mostly non-electronic)as basically filler.
That night, we experienced the worst snow storm in something like 30 years. My husband happened to be awake around 6:30 when he heard the power go out. The humming just stopped. He waited and waited for it to flicker back on, but nothing happened. I was oblivious. I was tired and I was asleep at 6:30 on a non-school, non-work morning. The kids came into our bedroom at 7:30, reverberating with excitement. When can we open presents? Do we think Santa came?
Unfortunately, our power was off. Unfortunately, the family room in our basement only has one window in it. I decided to go downstairs and see if with the blinds open, we could see anything. I went down. While trying to navigate in the dark around corners, couches, the coffee table and the presents I realized my kids were right, it is scary down here at night. I finally made it to the window and opened the blinds. It hardly made a difference. So my husband and I began bringing up the gifts and putting them under our upstairs tree. My kids were now vibrating with anticipation. My husband had put the Wii game and its components and all the games aside with a label of an X to know which ones were which. My kids unwrapped their gifts in probably 8.8 seconds (we try every year to be organized and drag out the unwrapping experience and every year it takes only 8.8 seconds). My kids were visibly shaken with what they received. Clothes, socks, and about two non-electronic toys each. They are really good people, my kids, they didn't want to hurt our feelings. They really liked the socks, they needed the socks, the toys were good and they liked the shirt and pants they received. We then let them open the "X" boxes. Shrieks and shrills ricocheted off our walls, and this was minimal compared to my husband's Whoo-hoos!
When the presents were undone and we looked at the mess in our dimly lit room, we realized, all four of us, that our power was still out. We couldn't set up and play the Wii. Christmas was ruined!:)
I pulled out one of the non-beeping, no lights and no buzzing family board games the kids ignored almost immediately after unwrapping it. It so happened to be the game of Life. And like "real life" this game was complicated to set up, you had to figure out what things were and what components went where. My husband sat behind a big sheet of instructions and called out what we were suppose to do to set the board up properly. Finally, he read,"OK, to begin playing, start..." The entire house revved up into an electronic frenzy. The humm was back. We had power.
The kids jumped up, throwing their blue and purple plastic "Life" cars in the air, "Let's set up the Wii!" and all three of them (my two kids and my husband) were gone.
I don't know how much I'll play the Wii. It is located downstairs in the basement where I can't do anything else but be downstairs. But I have to say, it's fun. So far I've played a few different games, my husband is trying to sell me on it. I had fun, but then funnest part was knocking the snot out of him playing Boxing.