My Christmas Bookends

Back in October, I posted a sweet picture of my boys wearing their childhood Halloween costumes, and that little spark of cuteness ignited eager requests from my daughter-in-law and one of my sons' girlfriends to post some more.  I ended up doing about ten posts showcasing old Halloween pictures, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane for me.  Well, after I shared an old Christmas photo with you the other day, my daughter-in-law politely requested that I post some more.  So if you've noticed a trend the past few days, it's entirely intentional.

And I hope you don't get tired of looking at our old family photographs (which are blurry and grainy and definitely sub-par in quality next to the ones I can take now with either my iPhone or my awesome Nikon digital camera).  For my part, I never get tired of looking at pictures of my beloved boys--blurry and grainy or otherwise.

In keeping with this theme of forcing you to peruse my family photo albums, here's another picture from those halcyon days of yore--this one from Christmas morning 1994.

There they are, all five of my boys, checking out the booty Santa had left under the tree. (And please realize that when I use the term "booty," I do not mean it in the 21st-century kind of way; I mean it in the old school, pirate-speak kind of way.  Arrrrr...)

Those are my bookend boys in the foreground: my baby, who's not quite 2 here and is wearing footy pajamas (how I miss those!), is on the left, clutching his ever-present McDonald's Happy Meal "Lion King" toys in his chubby little hands; my firstborn, who's 11 here and is already practicing for his future job as patient father to twin daughters, is on the right, showing his youngest brother how something or other works.

My oldest son's twins are only about four months younger than my baby was in this picture, and I can just see him this Christmas, helping those little girls open their gifts and showing them how to use them.  Now that's the circle of life, isn't it?  Can you hear the theme song to Disney's "Lion King" playing in your head?  How apropos, because that movie was my youngest son's passion at this stage of his life.  In fact, most of the gifts he received from Santa that year were "Lion King"-related.

When your children range in age from 11 to 2, you can't imagine that you'll ever be a fifty-something grandmother, but it happens.  That day comes.  And in ways it's a little sad to see how quickly the years have flown.  If I could get this group of little boys back with me this Christmas, just for a few minutes, what a gift that would be!  But only for a few minutes; because what a gift it is to have lived long enough to see five sons grow into manhood...to see the oldest married with children of his own...to meet twin granddaughters who light up my life...to know the wonderful men that my bookends, and the three lads who were born between them, have become.

Okay, cue the "Lion King" soundtrack now, while I grab a tissue...