rkdiliberti
After last year’s gloomy holiday season and COVID scare on Christmas Eve, many of us were determined to make this year’s holiday season much better. Christmas at the Ferrari’s did not disappoint! This year was also extra special because Mom was in town. (She chose to spend the holidays here because Michael and Becky were going to be out of town.) The girls and I did our annual baking on the 22nd and 23rd and the boys helped Laurie prepare dinner on the 24th. The weather, however, wasn’t ideal as much of the country was experience a bomb cyclone. I’m not quite sure what that is, but here in Michigan, it translated to very windy and exceptionally cold (-15 ºF). After having no snow all season, we did have a white Christmas when a few inches of snow fell — far short of the “storm of the century” that was expected. So while the storm was a bust, I’m glad it didn’t hinder those who had to travel. After dinner, it was time for the exchange.
Liz chose this year’s theme – Spirit Animals. So, all gifts had to be wrapped in something related to the recipient’s spirit animal, We drew names for the gift exchange. Here’s a summary of who bought for who:
- Andrew had Joann
- Chris had Melissa
- Elizabeth had Andrew
- Joann had Chris
- Laurie had Rhonda
- Matthew had Laurie
- Melissa had Tom
- Rhonda had Matthew
- Tom had Elizabeth
Laurie asked to start this year’s exchange, because she created an e-learning course that served as an intro to the Spirit Animal theme. The e-learning course — a tribute to our new jobs — then morphed into a series of self-check (group answered) personality trait questions designed to uncover my spirit animal. By almost unanimous opinion, my spirit animal was clearly a lion. Inside the box with the lions is my gift, which in terms of our theme Christmases isn’t part of the story.
Next was my turn. I had Matthew. Matthew is happy-go-lucky, easy-going, compassionate, and incredibly social xxxx. He also gets a big kick out of stupid things and is notorious for quoting SpongeBob. As it was difficult to find a spirit animal that possessed all of Matthew traits, I decided that most events in Matthew’s live probably remind him of a SpongeBob episode. So I chose the sea animals that live in Bikini Bottom as Matthew’s spirit animals.
