Christmas Morning

This one, however ill-lit, illustrates our perennial Big Morning routine. When the kids finally bullied us into coming downstairs, they’d find the suspense stretched out by means of the locked family room door at the base of the stairs, glass panels obscured with wrapping paper, and they were expected to cool their heels in stairstep fashion, youngest first, until the shutterbugs had completed their preparations.

Some years, we even insisted they approach by way of the kitchen, where hot chocolate and VERY sticky cinnamon rolls required sufficient if impatient attention and appreciation. This year (perhaps 1984), good humor prevailed.

A few years later, the older kids seem to have outgrown the ritual.