Because it wouldn't be Christmas without lies and deception.

I finally realized why there really are no traditions for the day after Christmas, except for eating leftovers and taking out the trash. It is because after the cooking, eating, opening of gifts, eating, playing, and napping no one really has any energy left for any yuletide tradition whatsoever. Unless you count eating.

That being said, Christmas Day was one of the best ever. Last year, I was in the hospital unexpectedly and sort of missed Christmas. Although, Jesus was with me in the hospital room. He always meets us where we are. :>) Anyhoo, I was very glad to spend the day with my husband, my daughter and even my very needy, annoying cat.

I gave my husband a new grill for Christmas. It was a surprise, planned many weeks ago. He is very hard to surprise. This year, I even hung Christmas bells on the front door so that he could not sneak in from work while I was trying to stash or wrap gifts. Oh, yes I did. I have never, no never been able to pull off any kind of surprise anything for this man. He is just too clever. Or I am just not. It's hard to say.

So, surprising him with any gift, much less a huge one, is hard. A grill was a big challenge. I purchased it weeks ago. It was assembled and scheduled to be delivered last Friday while husband was at work. The plan was to hide it on one side of the house, covered in plastic. After all, it is made for outside.

Everything was looking all rosy until the store called at 6:00 AM Friday morning to tell me that they were on their way to deliver our grill. You read that correctly. The sun was still sleeping, but apparently the local home improvement store is so on-the-ball that they arise before the chickens and deliver people's grills. You know, because most of us wake up to throw a rib-eye on the barbie before we have our coffee.

What I didn't know is that, as I was telling the home improvement store delivery guy what time it was, my husband had picked up the extension. Sigh. When I convinced the delivery guy to come at a decent hour of the day, I walked back to bed and met hubby in the hall. Lucky for me I told him it was a "wrong number."

I'm good, but I can't lie very well before 6:30 AM. I'm more of a night person.

Since it was a "wrong number", I didn' t have to make up a lie as to why someone we know would call us at that hour of the morning. Most of the time, when the phone rings at that ungodly hour, it isn't good news.

Everyone went back to bed. Husband went to work. And the home delivery guy brought the grill at 7:50 AM. I hid it in the planned location, covered it in trash bags, and hoped for the best.

It wasn't until that evening that this conversation occurred...

Husband-"When the home delivery guy called, I thought you were giving me a grill for Christmas."
Me-"Why? Did you hear him on the other line?"
Daughter- piercing look from across the room
Husband-"Yeah. Remember? I said I had it, and then you picked up and I hung up."
Me-"Oh. Well, it was a wrong number. I told him Didn't he know it was 6:00 in the morning?! and he had a wrong number. We've had a lot of calls like that. I think someone else had our number before we did. I hope whoever did buy a grill, finally got it."

At first I thought husband was just going along with the whole surprise, for the sake of our daughter. I really wasn't sure until he saw it Christmas morning, sitting on the back patio with a big red bow. (after I sneaked out of bed at 1:00 AM to move it in the cold, dark rain. That's love.) He seemed to be really surprised. Or maybe he was just delirious from sleep deprivation.

We opened our Christmas gifts at 4:30 AM.

My daughter woke up with the sniffles and couldn't go back to sleep. After a few minutes of pleading and begging, I just gave up. Ok. Let's see if Santa came.

He did. It seems that Santa is a night person too.

More on the rest of our day later... ;>)