Christmas Day Artillery

Christmas was a little unusual for our family this year as compared to those in year's past.

The delighted expressions that accompany the first discovery of a transformed living room was the same.


The joy of discovering a new item Santa brought the night before was unchanged.





And the thrill of receiving something unsuspected was fantastically similar.






But this.....



....this was definitely different.





Overnight, it seemed, our humble and nonviolent abode transformed into an artillery-filled compound. (Except for the fact that we are not located in deep caverns of the mountains, or protected by barb wired fencing or snarling attack dogs. Unless of course you count the ferociousness of the intimidating animal below.)



Everywhere one looked, weaponry could be found. I didn’t support the requests made to Santa for the air soft guns that give such a positive impression of our peace loving family. Lacking the Y chromosome that considers it fun to don camouflage and too tight goggles, all for the sole purpose of pulling a trigger that expels hundreds of tiny plastic pellets at inanimate objects or unsuspecting siblings, I couldn’t possibly relate to how this might be considered entertaining.

Santa informed me that I was very wrong.

To the jolly man's credit, hours have been spent outside playing with these new guns.



The law has only been called once on my little Southern snipers - a phone call made by Mary Mac when one of her brothers threatened to use her American Doll for target practice.

(However, I did hear that the Homeland Security Advisory System in our neighborhood had increased to Level Orange.)

A few hours of unarmed normalcy returned the day after Christmas for visiting family members. Battle tactics and combative strategy were put on a welcomed pause to open presents from Nana, Curt and JJ. It was a nice break from the guns and the pellets and the war games I don't understand. For a while, peace again reigned in our home.

That is, until this great photo was taken of Mary Mac and her Nana.



I think the compliant smiles in the picture may have had something to do with Chase slowly opening the flap of his coat revealing the soft air hand gun tucked into his pants, and slyly saying, "Smile, or I'll shoot."

Merry Christmas, everybody.