Paul and I celebrated his birthday Christmas eve with spaghetti, cake, and several episodes of Breaking Bad.  We are seriously hooked on this show…  I still haven’t got the ornaments up on my tree, but it has lights, and that seems just right, right now.

Christmas morning we got up early and drove north.  We’d join my brother and his family for Christmas, but first we spent most of the day together at Colonial Williamsburg.   Much as I loved stockings Christmas morning when I was a kid, even when I was little the opening of giant piles of presents always stressed me out.  I prefer spending Christmas Day doing something; there’s plenty of time to open the presents later, a few at a time, taking time to really enjoy them.

Williamsburg is really lovely, and I can’t believe I’d never visited before.  The 5th graders used to go every year, but since I taught 6th grade, I had just never been!  But I love re-enactment sites of all sorts, and colonial Christmas is pretty damn charming.  Every window is decked out in wreaths and candles, and the weather was perfect, and the tour guides reasonably enthusiastic considering they were working on Christmas Day.  We saw the basket-maker and the gun-smith and the jail; the Governor’s Palace, with hedge maze and working kitchen, where I saw my first actual Boar’s Head.  (!)

By afternoon we were getting hungry, and I was getting crabby.  There really wasn’t anywhere to eat – Williamsburg was “open” but all the restaurants in town were closed – so we went back to the visitors’ center where one could get soda, coffee, and too-expensive sandwiches.  The line was long, and only one determinedly cheery lady working.  She had run out of sandwiches, and couldn’t possibly have time to get back to the kitchen to make more, so she was simply making ham-and-cheese as fast as she could, right there at the counter, while grumpy travelers shuffled along in line.  The lady in line behind us was particularly cross:  “Why is this taking so long?  It’s just sandwiches.  Why does it cost so much?  It’s just sandwiches.  I can’t believe we’re having sandwiches on Christmas.”  “So don’t have a sandwich,” her husband sighed.  “Well, I have to eat something.  Christmas Dinner won’t be until 6.  I have to eat something before that!”  “So have a sandwich, then.” He sounded like he’d seen this conversation coming a mile away.  “Well, they have blueberry muffins.  I guess I could just eat a muffin.”  “So have a muffin – that’s a good idea.”  “Fine.  A muffin.  That’s all I’ll have, on Christmas Day.  A muffin.”  “So don’t have a muffin, then.”   And so on.  And I realized, that’s what I sounded like on the inside, too.  I was just as crabby and cross, only I wasn’t saying it out loud.  Somehow recognizing that made me do a fast attitude adjustment.  I was having a great day, doing exactly what I’d wanted to do, with the people I love.  And the sandwich was not bad.

After lunch, the same woman was standing there with her trash, looking at the over-full trash can by the cash register.  The sandwich lady was still going as fast as she could, as cheerfully as she could, and the line was still shuffling along.  “Well I guess you don’t want me to put my trash in here.  It will just end up on the floor,” Cranky said, pointedly.  Her husband looked embarrassed.  I was thinking, uncharitably, that she might just as well leave her trash on the table for someone else to deal with, instead of bothering the poor lady who obviously didn’t have time to deal with the trash can.  Or she could look for another trash can somewhere else.  Or she could just own it, really, and demand that the woman stop everything, ignore the other customers, and empty the trash for her.   I was so glad I hadn’t been cranky out loud.  I would hate to be like this selfish, thoughtless woman.

Meanwhile, Paul had jumped up.  “Oh, let me help you with that!” he said.  He grabbed the trash bag, tied it off, and quickly tucked it behind the corner of the counter.  The new trash bag was ready at the edge of the trash can, so he opened it and graciously offered to help Scroogette dispose of her plate and cup.  We left tips for the lunch lady and headed back to the Colonial Shoemaker, filled with not-bad sandwiches and Christmas spirit.

Paul is a gentleman.  I am a very lucky woman.

We got to Mike & Christi’s just in time for Christmas dinner, which was delightful.

Here’s the view out our window Christmas day: