Feast and Fancy

 Christmas Day, 2025

Before the hoards descended on it, there was a work of art on the table.

After the hoards descended, there was still a full meal of ham, asparagus, mashed taters and gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce.  Oof!  And all before the pie.

Interspersed with the food, presents mostly for kiddo!  Including one that my son picked out, matching one for the kiddo with another for himself, and that was the hypnotic hit of the gifts!

Ta-da!  High quality light sabers, complete with changing color blades and sound effects.  "From DS to DS" the self-gifting tradition came from DIL's side of the family, but FGC got the benefit.  

Boxing Day 2025

This was to be a mild weather day, and it started chilly but warmed up nicely.  It was a day when "the kids" planned an outing to the BIG ZOO up in Omaha (Henry Doorly, for those who aren't subject to local advertising here, also I do understand it's well known nationally).  It has been about 60 years or so since I last visited this zoo.  It has changed and grown a lot since then.

I dropped Ember off at her daycare and warned them I would be later than usual picking her up, due to travel time home from the zoo.  I did a few household chores, then headed over to meet my fellow travelers so that we would share a single car for the trip.  My daughter in law drove, her mom and I shared the backseat with FGC, since the three of us (for the next couple of years anyway) have the shortest legs in the bunch, leaving my son legroom riding shotgun.

We arrived at the zoo parking lot about five minutes before the gate opened.  During the drive, my very organized daughter in law quizzed the company for what our particular desires for this trip would be.  FGC wanted to see a roadrunner, so the Desert Dome was put high on the list.  Both my fellow grandma and I wanted to see the elephants.  Five baby elephants have been born at that zoo in the past four years, so they are "teenagers" now.  My son expressed a desire to see bears.  Daughter in law wanted to see the penguins and puffins, but she will be pulled by any bird in any setting.  FGC also wanted to get his gift shop souvenir that was in the budget: he wanted a snake.  Ewww!

The entire family knows that when my son was about FGC's age, he visited the aquarium in Boston and came away with a paper snake that had very lifelike motions.  He decided to surprise me with it and dangled it over into my face just as I got back in the car after having been in an all-day meeting.  I freaked out and destroyed his new toy in a reflexive reaction!  Until that time, I don't think my boy knew how afraid I was of snakes.  Anyway, that story has been cemented in family lore ever since... so given that we were likely to be seated the same way for the trip home, there was all day to "think" about snakes.

We saw all of what we'd named, and more.  Around every corner were surprises.  In between every planned and surprise adventure, a lot of walking, too.

We started in the desert dome, and that's where the live snakes were housed.  I flinched at every sighting.  Also early on was "the swamp" where there were alligators, and those gave FGC pause.

The gorillas showed a bit of aggression over their food and climbed high in their habitat.  

Father-son silhouette

Before the giraffe and elephants, we paused for lunch.

After lunch we visited giraffe and elephants. 

The giraffe had impressive habitat scaled to fit.

One mama and child elephant but several more of the herd were out and about.

We walked back to try to find the bears (which did not put themselves in view). Meanwhile found a couple of different rhinoceros, one in the African exhibits, the other in the Asian.  We got closer to the one in the Asian exhibit, and he was impressive to look at, but I didn't get a photo

In the Asian area, we watched a tiger pacing in his habitat.  There was a training area, with tiered seating.  We paused to rest, and wouldn't you know it... a family the kids knew was also visiting the zoo.  The two boys who had played on the same flag football team squealed one another's name and ran into a big hug, while their parents swapped notes.  FGC's little mate had broken his foot and was wearing a boot.  Didn't seem to slow the dude down, he was challenging FGC to a race up and down the stone steps!  Fortunately, his dad had more sense and called a halt to that nonsense.  We moved on to the snow leopards.

Walking, walking,  walking... and we got to a little area of shops.  At this point, there was a "horse tornado"... a term I didn't know until after our trip when I shared photos with my kid sis Alicia.  She had seen a tiktok video where an immigrant mom didn't know the word for Carosel or Merry-Go-Round and invented that term for it.  It cracked me up and I'm going to call them horse tornados for a while.  Indulge me.

DIL and FGC chose mounts, and I followed them on a zebra myself.  My son, and DIL's mom sat this one out, cheering us on and filming.  Clearly laughing at myself and my whimsey, I took a selfie!

There was a little playground in the area with a climbing tower that FGC was ready to play on. He happily did so while the adults sat on benches and plotted what we had time left to do.  

We opted to take the tram back toward the entrance, so that we could hit up the aquarium for the puffins and penguins.

The two grandmas sat in the seat behind FGC; the foster parents sat in a seat in front of him.  He wanted the whole bench so he could lie down, and fortunately it wasn't full enough for him to have to share.

But we grandmas had a fine time teasing "just a bit".  We talked about what was in the grandma handbook.  I asked him how he knew the rules and he claimed to have seen it and memorized it.  My co-grandma fessed up that she'd shown it to him, and we quizzed him on the rules.

Rule #1:  Always have snacks.

Rule #2:  Always keep the grandchildren safe.

Rule #3, per FGC:  Always buy me what I want.  "Within reason", I amended.  I got the biggest glare in return.

We ended the trip (after the aquarium) at the gift shop, where my son offered to go over budget on this HUGE stuffed snake, but only if he got the one that my son liked.  FGC did end up choosing that snake, but he told the grandmas, "Not because he offered to pay" but because FGC thought it was cool, too.  

My son agreed to fireman's carry FGC from the gift shop to the car.  Wowzah, that kid is getting too big for piggyback rides.  Son no doubt will feel this on Saturday.

Two grandmas, FGC, plus that big plush snake squeezed into the car's back seat, which seemed to have shrunk after all that walking.  Thankfully it was the snake was not a realistic one, so it was in no danger from my impulses. 

We managed to get home in time for me to pick up Ember only about an hour later than usual.  She was hungry, and happy to see me, and settled into our suppertime and after routine.  

A quiet Saturday is prescribed for all.  Sunday Winter Weather is supposed to return, according to the forecast.  I feel we made good use of the mild while we had it.  Whew!

Life is good.  Keep sparking!