Sundays are different

Mike did one of his l8-nite posts:

At 3:23 AM, michael patterson said…

April,

Little sis. Sundays for our family are a marvelous time. Everything seems more colourful. A lot of the time during the week, our life seems to go by so quickly there is barely enough time to set up a decent pun. But on Sundays there seems to be so much time to enjoy life, you wonder if it wouldn’t be better off to be just a little shorter or to have more things to do to fill the time. Certainly that is true this Sunday.

I know today is Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve night is the night when Santa will come, but for some reason, I had this feeling that the whole story of what happened to our family with our apartment burning happened on Christmas Eve night. In fact, that feeling is so strong, I think when I write my monthly letter for January, that’s the way I will tell it, that the fire happened on Christmas Eve night, maybe even with an Ebenezer Scrooge reference. It’s always good to throw in a reference to classic literature, particularly if it comes from an English author. That would make the story so much more poignant. I wonder if I can get everyone to go along with that this coming week as we deal with the aftermath of the fire. It would mean everyone would have to ignore my family’s history of traveling to Milborough and spending the night at mom’s for every Christmas since Christmas 2003, but I think our family is up to it. What do you think?

In any case, my daughter decided to get into the spirit of setting other days as Christmas Eve and she decided that the night before Christmas Eve was the night Santa Claus was going to come. Apparently she woke in the middle of the night, from where she was sleeping on the day bed in mom’s sewing room, beside the crib mom borrowed for Robin to sleep in. She might have gotten confused about what night it was, or she may simply have been creeped out by that extraordinarily repulsive, substitute doll, mom found for her to sleep with. Even Ned Tanner looks good compared to that ugly thing.

When I found my daughter on the floor, she was wearing a nice, polka-dotted red night gown, we got from the collection for kids’ clothes Deanna got from her co-workers. It was nicer than what my daughter normally wears to bed, so I have no reason to complain. As near as I can tell from the evidence, my daughter must have gone out of the sewing room, stealthily crept to and down the stairs and sequestered herself in a hiding place where she could view the Christmas tree and the chimney. Apparently my daughter was trying to catch Saint Nick in the act. I spoke to her as I was carrying her upstairs, and she said, “Daddy. It was sooo boring. I waited a long time. I looked away from the tree, but in secret looking at tree, in case Santa showed up. Then I fell asleep.”

The reason I was up in the middle of the night, was I woke up to check on the children, because I am a good father. Oh, alright. I was really up in the middle of the night to sneak some chocolate fudge before mom could eat it all. That’s when I found my daughter asleep on the floor. I picked her up to take her back to bed. As I was carrying her she said, “Daddy. I had a dream I took Robin to the Christmas tree and there were all these presents there – a tricycle, a live monkey, a wind-up Frosty the Snowman, a wrapped bottle of happy juice for Auntie Liz, and a lot of other presents wrapped up and all over the floor. I could tell it was a dream, Daddy. Because the presents were every one wrapped in different wrapping paper, like someone used a new roll of paper for every present. Then I said to Robin, ‘They’re right, Robin. …Santa comes when you’re sleeping’.” I said to her, “Maybe you can do that on Christmas Day and pretend you were sleeping on the floor tonight on Christmas Eve night.” My daughter said, “Maybe. Why are Sundays so different, daddy?” I said, “I will tell you what my father told me in this very same house, when I asked him the very same question---Six weeks dailies, eight weeks Sundays.” My daughter nodded her head sleepily, no doubt dreaming of a happier time when people planned 8 weeks in advance, so things didn’t seem so different on Sundays.

Love,
Michael Patterson

I know what he meanz abt Sundayz being diff. It's like U can have zits all week, have clear skin on Sunday, go back to having the zits on Monday, and then finally still have zits the following Sunday. So weird at times.