Sunday, December 25, 9:00 PM. Brewer.

Christmas Day! Amy and I are sitting together in the loveseat with our feet toward the fire. She’s reading A Christmas Carol. She likes to read that this time of year and hasn’t had a chance to do it yet. I’m writing in this diary.

Last night the kids put on a little Christmas pageant. They dressed up as Joseph and Mary and the wise men and such and acted everything out.

We spend a lot of our nights putting on skits and plays. Usually the kids perform for Amy and me but sometimes we all get involved. At first it was just a way to pass the time, but then we discovered it’s truly fun. We laugh together. We tell stories. They are evenings to remember.

It was a fine Christmas Day, a wonderful day. The kids got up at six to see what Santa Claus brought them, though none of them believe in him. We did get them presents, things we thought they’d like that they wouldn’t know to ask for. Claire got an Easy Bake oven. She didn’t know those existed. She loves it. Spent the day making cookies and cakes and a little pizza. Trevor got a Lego robot set. He can program robots with Legos. It’s way too old for him but we can do it together. We made an alligator robot with it this afternoon. I couldn’t figure out how to program it but Garrett got it connected to the laptop and made it snap its jaws and things. It’s pretty amazing. I could see it coming in handy for things like automatic water valves or—I don’t know—door openers. Trevor will find out something amazing to make with it, and I bet Garrett won’t have to help him for more than a few weeks before Trevor does everything himself.

Garrett got a car and a driver’s license. He’s ready. I gave him a little 15-minute driving test before I handed over the license, more for ceremony than anything else. Letting him drive by himself does make me nervous. He’s inexperienced. As Amy says, “He’s fourteen for crying out loud.” But it’s not like there’s a lot of other traffic on the road, and he’s a level-headed kid. It was always the other drivers that made me scared to imagine him driving. He’ll be okay.

We gave him an electric VW van. With the gas going bad, electric seemed like a good idea. It’s a little used. The ones at the Volkswagen dealership were secured and wouldn’t respond to us. We got one from somebody’s garage.

We read the Christmas story out of Matthew. Then we had a big lunch. For our main course we had a turkey that Trevor and I killed a couple weeks ago. There were lots of good vegetables. Bread and butter. Pumpkin pie. Punch. We’re eating pretty well these days.

I wasn’t too hungry. The nausea I’ve been feeling the last couple weeks was noticeable today. I don’t want to overstate it. It’s not that bad, not as bad as I felt last summer. I never thought I was actually going to throw up today. But it has lasted all day, even now, and spoiled some of the fun of diving into a big holiday meal.