I did the usual things I've been doing for the past 12 Christmas Eves.  I baked, wrapped, and cleaned.  Yelled, a little bit.  One child serenaded me with Christmas songs on her violin (or so she said; I had to take her word for it) while the other one yelled "Booo, stop, you SUCK!"

I made him unwrap the Hershey's Kisses for the peanut blossom cookies as punishment.   I  bake these cookies every year.  They were my husband's favorite and also my kids'.  I don't particularly like them that much. They're just peanut butter cookies with a chocolate kiss in the center.  I'm not crazy about peanut butter cookies and I'd rather eat the chocolate kisses by themselves. 

Woody was watching television;  his sister's dulcet screeches made it difficult to hear the compelling narrative of the educational show he was viewing via YouTube. 

It was called "Is It  A Good Idea To Microwave This."  It probably doesn't require any explanation but for those who may think there's more to it than the title suggests, no, there is not.  Two goofballs named Jory and Riley put various objects into microwaves and nuke them, then see how they fare.  

In the short time I watched, they blasted a mannequin's head;  a plasma globe; an animatronic Pikachu; a liquid air freshener; and a My Little Pony toy.  It was Pinky Pie, my 11-year-old daughter's favorite when she was younger.  It was horrible epecially when they added the neighing noises.

Since they destroy almost every microwave they use, there's a new one for each adventure.  Jory and Riley name them, like hurricanes.  But only female names. In the half hour or so that I watched, they went through Gabriella, Penny, Tracy, Shannequa,  and Diane.  There was even one named Margaret.

At first I stood at the counter and made fun of the two hosts, their ridiculous antics and the fact that anyone could possibly call this entertainment: essentially watching two guys put something in a microwave and destroy it, over and over and over again.  But after a while I found myself getting into it.   I rooted for the mostly doomed objects.  I howled with laughter, sometimes louder than my son.

I thought the Play Doh pizza was particularly funny because they called it a Play DohGiorno pizza.  Which, by the way, survived the assault and actually made it out of the oven in an improved, hardened state. 

When my older two were his age, I'd never have allowed them to watch anything so inane. There'd have been Christmas music and maybe The Grinch or Scrooge would have been playing on TV.  There'd have been big plans in place for the next day. 

But things have changed since they were thirteen.  By then their dad had been dead for two years.  In the years following his death, tastes changed, standards were lowered, traditions fell away.

The one thing I do like about peanut blossoms is you press the kiss in the middle of the cookie as soon as you take them out of the oven.  The heat from the cookie makes the kiss all melty and soft and it stays that way after the cookie cools.  

When the cookies are lying there all over the counter it is nearly impossible not to eat those delicious kisses right off the tops of them.  I did this occasionally when I baked them for Keith but after the first time he encountered an expanse of ravaged, kiss-less cookies, and exploded in righteous anger, I tried to limit myself to just one or two.  Since it was the only cookie he liked, I felt pretty guilty for doing that. Christmas is not the best time to feel guilt.

There are so many things that have changed since he died and since Christmas comes only once a year, this is the time of year that it's most noticeable.   Some changes are more noticeable than others. 

I was up late, baking, long after the kids went to sleep.   This morning, after they did the present thing, I settled down for a little nap in the family room. They eventually made it into the kitchen.  The peanut blossoms were on trays, all over the island.  Just before I drifted off, I heard their cries:  "Hey!  Hey who did that!  Who ate the kisses off all the cookies!"

This time I felt no guilt.