Dec 26

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It’s Monday again. I would say it was back to work, but you have to have a day off in order to come back to work. Since I haven’t had one this month, let’s just call it a continuation of a loooong week. But, I can’t complain. It was Christmas this last week and even though I really wanted to have it off so that I could spend the day with the family, it was still very nice. Let’s start on Christmas Eve. I had had to be at work at 10, so naturally my wife started getting stuff ready at six in the morning when I got off work. She started with making Christmas cookies and candies. (Yes, I am still working my way through them) I don’t know what she did after that because I was asleep. But, since Christmas dinner was at three and it was ready, I’m assuming that was what she was doing. Everyone was supposed to wake me up at a little before three, but I woke up a little after noon. I had a bunch of presents I still needed to wrap, so I worked on that until it was time to go downstairs. We’re talking about my wife’s side of the family, so naturally no one showed up on time. (If it would have been my side of the family, only half of them wouldn’t show up on time, and I would probably be included in that half) But, eventually the house filled up. We have a bunch of Cowboy fans amongst the family, so we watched the Cowboys get trounced as we ate. Afterwards, we got all the kids together to decorated cookies. When they were finished, it was the adult’s turn. (They made more of a mess than the kids) During the decorating, I was supposed to announce that I was going to work so that I could sneak upstairs and put on the Santa costume. I forgot to let anyone know I was going, but no one noticed anyway. When I came down, I handed out candy canes and let everyone take pictures with me. My granddaughter, who is deathly afraid of anyone in a costume, wouldn’t come take a picture with me by herself, but she got really close to me and just stared. She even let me touch her nose. After I left and came back downstairs, she kept coming to me all night telling me that I was Santa. I tried telling her that I wasn’t, but she didn’t believe me. Then, when the kids took her home, she stayed up until two in the morning. They tried to get her to go to sleep, but she kept asking them if I was Santa. She didn’t want to take no for an answer. But, back to Christmas Eve. After decorating cookies, it was time to open presents. When I first married my wife, twenty years ago, her family opened all their presents on Christmas Eve at midnight. It only took me a couple of years to show them that my way of opening them on Christmas morning was better. So now, we open the presents to each other in early evening so that all the separate families can go home and have Christmas with their families. Halfway through the gift exchange, (There are a bunch of people on my wife’s side of the family, so it took a while) I started falling asleep in the chair. So, my wife woke me up and sent me off to take a nap before I had to go to work. But, it was still fun.

I got off work at six and woke everyone up so that they could get ready. It took four trips to load all the presents into the car. (I should have gotten a big box or a basket) Then, we drove down to my son’s house. Since the baby stayed up very late on Christmas Eve, she didn’t want to wake up on Christmas morning. It was about 8:30 when we arrived and like me, they went overboard getting the baby gifts. The tree was very full and looked wonderful. It took the baby a while to get into it, but eventually, she started opening her presents and waking up. We spent a couple hours at my son’s house and then we went to Dennys. It’s a restaurant that is open twenty four hours a day. Since most everything else was closed, it was packed. Still, we got a seat right away and the service wasn’t too bad. The food on the other hand wasn’t the best for me. Everyone else liked it, but I thought I would try something new and as it turns out, I should have ordered something that I knew I liked. Oh well, next time. After eating, I had to go home to go to sleep so that I could go to work that night. It was only a little after noon, and I had a lot of time to spend with the family, so even though I had to work, it was a fun Christmas.
The Christmas dinner for my side of the family hasn’t happened yet. For some reason, time snuck up on us and by the time we started organizing it, we didn’t have any time left. Then, after we had it all settled, I learned that I was going to have to work straight through New Years and wasn’t going to make it. So, it’s my fault that we didn’t get together. But, we’re going to have a Christmas in January dinner this year. That gives us a paycheck to recover from the real Christmas and hopefully I’ll get a day off.
My youngest daughter started working this year. When she first started, she said that she was going to save all her money to buy a car. But, she didn’t take Christmas into consideration. She is very generous and wanted to get everyone something. So, she spent at least two whole paychecks buying presents. She even got half of her class at school something. Then, on Christmas, she was kind of disappointed that her brother and sister didn’t get her anything. But, she understands that it isn’t what you get that’s important. And, she still had a good Christmas.
I got my wife a Wii with the Super Mario game. We went to one of her cousin’s house one time and saw them playing with one and ever since, she’s wanted one. She’s even talked about getting one a few times, but something always came up. So, I thought it was about time to get her one. She was very surprised when she unwrapped it. After dropping me off to go home and sleep on Christmas, she was going to take it back to my son’s house to play on his big screen TV. Well, as they were setting it up, they discovered that the sensor was missing from the box. It said that it was included on the box, but it was missing. So, they were going to take it back to the store today, but for some reason, today was just as busy as Christmas, even though she only had to work half a day. So, hopefully we can get her a new one tomorrow.
Well, I better get to work. It’s been a few very sleepy nights for me at work, so I haven’t been working on anything. I guess it’s time to get back into the grind. However, I might start working on one of the other books tonight. I’m only a few chapters away from finishing the River of Magic, but I haven’t been very excited about working on it lately. Other books have been creeping into my brain and I’ve been thinking about them more than the one I’ve been working on. So, it might be time to shelve the River of Magic for a week or so and see which other one starts working out. I think I want something loud to listen to for background music so I’m putting Tesla, Cinderella, Twisted Sister, and Def Leopard into the playlist tonight.
-Thom