The Piantanidas: No Christmas is Complete Without a Little Fire

The St.Jeor family sent us the coolest gift - lanterns to "light up the night" on Christmas eve, so Santa could see his way to our house. The lanterns are made of biodegradable paper, about 4 feet tall, and have a block-like candle that gets attached to wire at the base of the lantern to make it float into the sky.

This all seemed pretty simple to me, however my parents decided to not only read the directions, they decided to debate their contents. One small challenge here - the directions for the lanterns were written by someone who's first language was definitely not english. And while very entertaining to read, some of the gaps in the directions made my parents over analyze the basic instructions.

As they debated back and forth, I sat - as I was told to - on the planter box. As my dad lit the lantern and they went back and forth on how it would eventually fly, I sat patiently saying "light, light, light." Then suddenly - just as the directions had stated - the lantern self lifted in to the sky. WOW! It worked! None of us could believe it. It just kept going up and up and up and OH NO!

While my parents focused so heavily on the process, no one cared to look up and realize they were lighting the lantern directly under our 50' pine tree in our front yard. Yup, the lantern, and 4' paper enclosure, and it's fire - floated right into the tree, then up, and up and wedged itself into the middle of the tree where it burned.

In what is considered a "less-than-merry" family moment, my parents tried to decide who's stupidity was responsible for what we hoped wouldn't be a call to the fire department on Christmas eve. I got my football helmet on (wouldn't you?) and came back and sat calmly on the planter box, which was directly under the burning fire in the pine tree. I pointed - in case no one had realized - and said, "tree, fire!" Neither of my parents looked amused but I was quickly moved to the porch to watch the spectacle.

Fortunate for all of us, the lantern eventually burned itself out without igniting the tree or our house on fire - whew, that would have been a little too much "merry and bright" for us. Thanks St.Jeors for the cool gift and the story to last a lifetime!

The daytime was far less eventful. We visited the National Christmas tree and went to the National Harbor to see the water skiing Santa and his reindeer. They had elves that did flips on knee boards and air chairs - a descent show for guys skiing in 43 degree water, brrr!

As you may have heard, I'm not too thrilled with the idea of sitting on Santa's lap this year. Attempts have been made and well, it hasn't ended well. So my mom and I compromised. Below is my official "Photo with Santa" for this year. While it's not the real guy, we both look happy in the picture!

And finally, the joys of Christmas morning came today. We got up to find our living room filled with cool stuff. Here are some photo highlights from the morning.

I got a new ski helmet and goggles for skiing!