Day 795: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: napkin

This is my post for #freewrite Tuesday prompt napkin hosted by @mariannewest

It has been many years since I had kids home at Christmas and I still can not get over how quiet the house is, no laughter is the hardest and I can not help but remember Christmases past. I was always a last-minute drinking wrapper up til 2 or 3 am.

After the kids were in bed we would start the process of wrapping the gifts and putting things together, we would have several drinks while doing this. One year my husband said he was tired of writing from Santa and the kids got presents from the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Jolly Green Grinch, Scrooge, Tom Thumb, I can not remember all but in our drunken stupor, it was any fairy tale person we could think of.

Then there was the year I wrapped each child's gifts in one kind of wrapping paper and did not put their names on the gifts. After getting them all wrapped in five different kinds of paper I mixed them all up so when they woke before we did, which was always, they would not know which gift to pick at. I was smart enough to tear a piece of the wrapping paper off and write their name on it so I would know who got the train paper who got the Santa paper and so forth.

Right before Christmas, the kids were all teens, my husband bought a new outboard motor. It came in a big box with a styrofoam insert. I took the insert out and put a 100 dollar bill in 5 envelopes and taped them to the back of the insert and put it back in the box, then I filled the insert with sticks, put the lid on it and wrapped it. This box was 5 feet tall. The kids opened the box and saw all of the sticks. I told the kids they have all been bad and that was all they were getting was sticks. I let them stew for a minute or two then told them they should look the box over, there might be something else in it. I bet it took them almost ten minutes before one of them pulled the insert out but they did not look on the back of it, we were just about to bust a gut. One of them finally turned the insert over and saw the envelopes. I brought out the few gifts I got them so they would have something to open. The next day I took them to town and let them buy what they wanted.
So as I sit here on Christmas Eve these are the thoughts that are going through my mind, I think I need a napkin.