The “House Critters” Christmas Afternoon

 

    Bob’s relatives had just left to continue their Christmas day visits and the living room was quite a mess. What with paper, bows, and boxes from stockings and gifts all over the place, because the two little humans played in it. Everybody helped with clean up and when it was done the critters thought that opening presents would be the next activity. They were wrong, Bob’s sister Deb thought that after all this food and sitting around they should take a walk. Her spouse Karen agreed and pointed out that a walk on the Outlet Trail would be good for all of them.

    The house critters which are Henrietta Bobbie Bunny, Ducky Duck, Rainy Reindeer, Blue Booby, and Big Bunny were not happy with this decision. They remembered that Deb and Karen walked to fast for them and decided to take a nap until the humans got back. This had to be when presents would be passed out by the elf. Critters don’t do well with clocks, so they were checking for the humans to get back quite often, which of course meant they did not get much of a nap. Only a little over an hour had gone by when the kitchen door opened and Amy along with the rest of them piled in.

   Deb went directly to the antique room and put on the elf  hat, the critters started jumping with joy when she started to go through the piles of presents and put quite a few in front of where they were and there was also a pile for each human. This activity took a while and the elf once again got to decide the order in which presents would be opened and declared that as always opening one gift at a time was the rule.

   This time the elf chose oldest as the starting point, which meant Bob would open the first present, then the next oldest open one, and so on till the youngest opened a present. The critters were confused, as Henrietta was the oldest of them, but how her ages fit in with the humans was a mystery. Turned out they did not have to worry as the elf declared Henrietta second oldest and said they could all open stuff when it was her turn. Opening items took hours, because everyone had to show what they got and say if it was from Santa or someone else. The critters got lots of presents; after all there were five of them! The best was a small trampoline for the bunnies hopping practice, Ducky getting a special jet tub for swimming in the winter and Rainy sharing a treadmill with Blue. As usual, due to the number of gifts, it was Amy that was opening presents long after everyone else was done! Oh, there is still dinner with spiral ham, turkey, buttery mashed potatoes, all the vegetables the critters can handle, and a special French desert.