An Advent-ure

Well, here we are in another Christmas season. Even if you are blase to holiday hoopla, you can't miss the season with decorations, ads, and promotions everywhere. It is a time for waiting and counting as it is in a paper I wrote with my class many years ago.

It All Adds Up

My father-in-law in red suspenders over his holiday flannel shirt starts in about an hour or so before dinner. "Mike, will you help me with the count? How many watching TV?"
I check. "Eight."
"Any outside?"
From the cottage window overlooking Lake Erie, I see kids running and chasing through the early winter snow drifts. "Six," I say.
"What about in here?"
Now, "in here" means a combination kitchen, dining room, and living room all in one. Architects like to call it a great room. And today, it is great with home-for-the-holidays relatives. Some sit on the ledge around the fireplace. Little guys roll on the rug and crawl under couches. Cooler than hip teen cousins cluster in small groups, they talk, mostly in whispers, about school activities, catch-up news, clothes, music, and dates. Brothers-in-law circle the round table and sample the cheeses, crackers, meats, fruits, and candies. Real sisters and sisters-in-law occupy the kitchen end, checking pans, pots, ovens, timers, and diapers. Adult mixers control the center counter, reserved for beverages ranging from colas to vodkas. Ice melts quickly here. Counting heads "in here" is truly a movable feat!
"How many we got, Mike?" My father-in-law asks.
You see, numbers are important to Ed. They should be. He and Virginia have raised twelve children. Twenty-one years to the day separate the birth of the oldest and the birth of the youngest. Those children have married and now have children of their own.
Ed's better at counting than I am; I think he uses me simply as a back-up counter. "With three babies asleep upstairs, one kid in the bathroom, six playing outside, eight watching TV in the den, and twenty-seven in here, I come up with forty-five."
There is a short thoughtful pause.
"Not enough," Ed says. "Who's missing"? After re-checking, re-looking, and re-adding, He announces the definitive figure. "Forty-seven, Mike, we've got forty-seven here today."
Arriving at the year's number gives my father-in-law a certain degree of peace and pleasure. He then is able to take his favorite mixed drink and settle into a stuffed chair near the glow of the fireplace. "Forty-seven, Mike, that's a lot of people. Wonder how many next year?" And with a twinkle in his eyes nearly matching the Christmas lights across the room, he adds, "Bet we get to fifty pretty soon. Bet we do."
No bet with me. He's probably right on the money. You see Ed's just very good with numbers especially on Christmas Day when numbers really do count.

Postscript: Ed would be very happy and proud to know that this Christmas the count is sixty-four.