Zack and I trekked across the DFW today to hang out with my family for the afternoon. I finished my last final this morning (!) and changed gears into project mode. And I take project mode real serious. So does my mom, and she has much, much better tools than I have.

Mom and I attacked my many projects with a dizzying fury. By dinner time, there was nothing that could solve our hunger except the classic energy-packed trio of margaritas, queso, and tacos.

Joining us for dinner were Zack, brother Boo, sister Katy and a new Huff Family Cling-On, Stephanie.

We wound up discussing our family plans for Christmas, which then lead to our discussion of the most famous Huff Family Christmas: the year mom didn’t label the gifts. Well, she kind of labeled them. You see, mom knows how to write in shorthand. She labeled all the gifts in unrecognizable lettering that none of us could decipher, intending to use our confusion as a mechanism to slow down the progression of christmas morning. But when it came time to open the packages, she got such a kick out of watching us open each other’s presents and try to figure out who they really were intended for, that she just let us keep guessing.

Tonight Boo was telling a memory from that day I’d never heard him talk about. He said he had been thrilled to get one of the gifts he opened, but mom stepped in and told him that it was really intended for me, and he needed to fork it over.

Stephanie interjected at that point, asking why he’d given it up. “I mean, finders keepers, right?”
Mom shrugged.
Boo said he didn’t know why.
I seized the opportunity to do my Southern Baptist Preacher impersonation, saying, “Because mom and dad raised us well, training us in the way we should go so we would not depart from it. They didn’t spare the rod! Or spoil the child!”
Boo laughed, then asked, “What’s that from?”
I said, “The Bible.”