Doodle Acres

At our church, they are starting a new family program called “Kris Krindle”. Each participating family is supposed to secretly give a token gift and a phone call or letter to their assigned family on each Sunday of Advent. Well we were assigned a family from our parish that we know quite well. I baked my famous chocolate chip cookies and brought them to mass hoping we could ask another parishioner to deliver them for us. Well we were out of luck. They weren’t there. This is where our adventure begins.

After dark, we headed over to their home only to realize that I wasn’t really sure of the house number (I thought I’d recognize it as I’ve been there once or twice). So we headed back home to double-check the house number. Turns out I had it right all along. By this time we are all giggling in anticipation of my oldest son’s (Lenny) mission: deliver cookies to the assigned porch without being seen while the assigned home is lit up with tons of Christmas lights and they have a bunch of company over. Lenny had dressed himself up in his Ninja best: dark clothing, black gloves, a dark ski hat and a scarf covering his face except for his eyes. So after passing the house, we pull over and shut off our lights. Lenny jumps out and starts his approach. Thirty seconds later as we are trying to figure out where he is, he comes by my window and says “Which house is it?” This of course led to side splitting laughter. Finally we watch as he stealthily approaches the house, places the cookies on the porch and returns to our van. Okay, Phase One complete!

Now for our second and final phase of Week 1: the phone call. First we had to look up how to disable the caller ID (so as to call them without being identified) and then it was my oldest daughter’s (Hope) turn to jump into action: Making the obligatory phone call. After dialing the number, Hope in her best disguised voice (an Indian accent) says, “Hello this is Kris Krindle. You have a present on your front porch. Merry Christmas!” As I look upon her proudly, I see that she is standing frozen, not sure what to do. I gesture to her to hang up, which she does. Apparently, she must have been a bit difficult to understand so the father said, “WHAT?” Well that was one response we hadn’t planned for and the poor girl had no idea what to say!!!

Well after much laughter, we decided that they would either figure out enough of the message to find the cookies or else their guests would discover them on the way out. I must say that week 1 of Kris Krindle was a rousing success in creating family fun and wonderful memories. I just wish I had taken a picture of Lenny in his Ninja best!!!