What are the ramifications of having 13 extra people coming into your house over the holidays, all of whom expect to do a lot of sledding on the Girl Scout Hill or playing in the snow-shrouded playground in the park across the street? One answer is “boots!” Lots of ‘em. So we had soggy snow clothes and boots to boot!
Every time I came into the mudroom, I had the feeling that there had been a population explosion in the boot kingdom: boots from the smallest I’ve ever seen to our 16-year-old grandson’s, which are bigger than mine, lined the boot trays and rugs in the room.
It made me think of the matryoshka dolls we had seen when we visited Russia about 10 years ago. Also known as Russian nesting dolls, these were sets of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. Those boots in the mudroom would have taken a lot less floor space if we could have nested the smaller ones inside larger ones!
The boots are all gone now. Another holiday season has passed, and the chaos and the cacophony of a houseful of company has dissipated into a roaring silence that should be comforting but isn’t. Vestigial signs of the departed kids are still showing up. The windows in the sunroom are covered with tiny hand prints, the glass-topped coffee table is smeared top and bottom with finger smudges. (Cameron hid under the table during a session of hide-and-seek, not realizing the glass left him in full view of Stephanie who was “it”!)
We’ve found a few extra toothbrushes and Nolan’s gallon Ziplock stash of gummy bears, a Harry Potter robe and several pairs of balled-up socks, LEGO pieces under couch cushions, and scattered rubber bands from a bracelet loom, a bow off a present behind the leg of the piano and single, little Cheerios on the rug under the game table and a half tube of Ritz crackers in the front hall closet where Cameron and Stephanie secreted themselves to watch cartoons on an iPad.
Who knows what other treasures we might find to remind us of the presence of the little ones?
It’s funny how each year the dynamic of our annual get-together changes. The older grandkids are less and less involved in the little kids’ activities; they’re nearly adults now. The impact of having a 5-month-old was interesting. Virtually everyone wanted to hold her; little Sloane was the belle of the ball for sure.
My sister in Florida, after seeing the plethora of pictures that Marilyn sent out, said, “I feel like I’m the only one in the family who didn’t get to hold Sloane.” By next Christmas, she’ll probably be running around and won’t want to be cuddled!
I started this epistle with a reference to boots and the expression “to boot.” You know me, I can’t really let that pass without some comment, can I? Where does the expression “to boot” come from?
Nowadays, “to boot” is simply an idiomatic way of saying “moreover,” or “on top of that.” I looked it up, and originally, the phrase comes from Old English “to bote.” In Old English “bot” meant “help, relief, advantage; atonement,” literally “a making better.” Our word “better” comes from the same root.
So, there you have it, my dissertation on holidays at the VanHarens’ and a language lesson to boot!
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