The house is quiet.  Candles are lit in the fireplace.  Hannah is rubbing Grandpa’s feet.  The Christmas lights are twinkling and Tony’s reading of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is punctuated every so often by giggles. It has been a perfect day.

It’s been a day of Christmas bustle, Grandma and the boys baked cookies, Ruthie, single handedly produced a quadruple batch of cinnamon rolls.  We made eight pizzas, baked five chickens and munched our way through nanaimo bars, homemade caramels, coconut covered truffles, and spiced almonds.

The boys played soccer in the garden, basketball in town with the local kids, swam and jumped into the lake from the tree and swung from the vine like the monkeys they are. Phil ran back and forth into town like a pack mule, collecting laundry before breakfast, carrying two 5 gallon bottles of water, buying napkins and bleach and three pounds of strawberries.

Mom and Ruthie and I wandered in after vegetables and butter, tomatoes and an herbed edam wedge for Hannah’s stocking in the morning.  We found Dad, half way up the river path, painting at his easel, to the great amusement of the locals.

Cate  & Georgia stopped by, sampled the goodies and promised to return for the big party tomorrow.

David made his first pie crust, for the pumpkin pies I’m making just for him.  “Cut the flour and salt into the Crisco with that fork, you want it to be uniformly grainy, like little peas… then, add four tablespoons of cold water… no, you’re right, it’s not enough, but better too little than too much, you can’t fix it if you get the dough to wet.”  “Right!” He replied, “Just like tile grout.”  That’s a man for ya, pie dough is like tile grout.  His crust came out fine.

Jeff and Wendy and the boys appeared around 4:30 p.m. marking the beginning of the Christmas Eve party.  The kids dove eagerly into the goodies.  The adults sipped wine and chatted.  Phil poured me a glass of the strawberry flavoured wine the young people brought us.  “Is it good?!” He asked, eagerly.  It wasn’t exactly good, but I smiled and replied, truthfully, “It tastes like college!”  He laughed.

The children beat the candy out of the pinata that David risked life and limb to hang from a high branch of a tree in the garden.  Little Darius started the fun and David stacked the deck so that he got to end it as well.  Fun was had by all.

It occurred to me, as we sat in the semi darkness singing carols, that Christmas doesn’t get any better than this: a houseful of friends and family, loved ones, young and old.  We might not have a tree, or big gifts, or egg nog, but we’ve got orchids, a smoking volcano and mortars going off with increasing frequency as we get nearer to midnight.

The kids will head to bed and we’ll stuff stockings and arrange gifts.  I can’t help but think of our gardener’s family in their one room hut, preparing for a sadder Christmas.  Adang told me today that his sister was in a car accident and has broken her spine.  She is in the hospital in Solola, paralyzed from the waist down.  Next week is the first anniversary of his mother’s death. They’re having a hard time mustering much Christmas cheer.  We made cookies and gave a small gift to both he and his uncle, who is our night guard.

Marcario wandered back to his concrete block house at the back of our garden loaded down with a whole pizza and a big plate of goodies.  Ezra carried his water because he was out of hands.  It wasn’t five minutes before he was back, looking a little bewildered, cookie plate in hand.  It took me several tries to convince him that the card and few dollars inside were for him.  “Are you sure?  This is for me?  Should I share with Adang?  You gave him one already?  Or you’re going to?  Are you sure?  All for me?!”  He gave me a big hug and smiled with both of his teeth.

That’s all I wanted for Christmas.