[il Padrino Ute]

I'm not sure how Christmas morning went for you folks, but at my house it went something like this:

My wife and I are awoken by the 5 year old girl hollering that her brothers are fighting over unwrapped gifts next to the Christmas tree. We then hear a crash as the tree falls over and knocks a few pictures and frames off the wall.

And so it starts.

With impressive quickness, my wife is out of bed and down the stairs into the living room. The first words I hear from her are not "Is everyone ok?", but "Look what you guys did. Now I'm going to have to clean up the broken glass (from the frames) and broken ornaments. Get your butts upstairs to your room now!"

In her defense, at 6:00 AM, I'm not thinking about the safety of the kids either. And as parents, isn't it our job to remind our kids how much work they are for us so they'll appreciate what we did for them when they are parents?

I get up, walk downstairs and watch my wife clean up the mess.

The boys - who never did get their butts in their room - then start asking which present is whose and my wife tells them not to worry about the presents - and makes it clear to them with just a look - that if they say one more word, life may end.

I lie down on the couch.

The 9 year old boy asks me if they can open the presents now and I tell him that before we can do anything, everyone needs to settle down a bit and that we need to wait for the 15 year old girl to come upstairs from her room so the entire family can be there. He takes it upon himself to wake her up and I hear her scream at him "Get out of my room and let me sleep!" Apparently he decided that she didn't really mean what she had said, because I hear her scream (even louder) "I want to sleep! Get out!"

The 9 year old then comes upstairs and tells my wife that the 15 year old won't get out of bed. She tells him to leave the 15 year old alone for a few minutes and for him to go into the living room and sit down and wait. But what he hears is for him to go back downstairs and yell at the 15 year old "Mom says you have to get up now!"

This is where the 15 year old goes into assault mode.

She chases the 9 year old up the stairs, into the living room and kicks him in his hiney like a soccer ball which sends him sprawling across the hardwood floor and sliding into the wall next to the front door, tipping over a floor lamp in the process.

The lamp thumps the 13 year old boy right square in the noggin. He makes no effort to move out of the way of the falling lamp because he's a male and we males tend to not move out of the way of things. He jumps out of the chair and goes after his 15 year old sister who tries to retreat, but he's too fast and almost instantaneously has her on the floor in a head lock threatening to remove her lungs through her mouth. My wife jumps in and separates them while telling them that if they don't stop acting like wild animals, she'll gather up all the gifts and put them in the trash cans outside.

I get up off the couch, pour myself a glass of orange juice, go back into the living room, place the glass of OJ on the end table and lie back down on the couch.

Meanwhile, the 5 year old is opening presents - none of which are hers - and the 15 year old girl - who is now in teenage drama queen mode - alerts us to this fact because the 5 year old is wearing the fashionable boots that my mother-in-law told the 15 year old she was going to get for a gift. The 15 year old picks up her little sister, rips the boots off the kid, puts the 5 year old down, grabs the boots and sits down on a chair. The 5 year old isn't about to give up the boots without a fight and goes after her older sister. The two of them play tug-o-war with the boots until the 5 year old loses her grip, falls down and starts to cry. The wife comes into the living room from the kitchen, picks up the 5 year old and tells the 15 year old that she is "this close" to being grounded to her room for the remainder of the Christmas break. The 13 year old backs up my wife by telling the 15 year old that it's not cool to pick on a 5 year old girl, but the wife doesn't appreciate the help, as she tells the 13 year old that if he doesn't sit down and shut up, he'll not only be grounded too, but will have a broken butt as well.

I get off the couch, drink the rest of the OJ, walk into the kitchen, place the empty glass in the sink and go back into the living room and lie down on the couch.

The wife then turns on me. She asks me why I allowed the 5 year old to open several presents, as if it's my fault. She doesn't accept my answer when I told her that I didn't see what was going on because I was lying on the couch drifting in and out of sleep. She then makes me sit up so she, the 5 year old and the 9 year old can sit on the couch so we can start unwrapping the presents that the 5 year old didn't already open.

From there, other than the few times that the 15 year old girl expressed her preference would be to be asleep in her bed - which were quickly squelched by my wife reminding her of impending said grounding - the rest of Christmas went smoothly.

And close to noon, I was the last one out of the house to go to the in-laws' house where more Christmas cheer would be spread. But no fallen trees or floor lamps.