christmas update

I know Christmas is, strictly speaking, just one 24-hour day. However, in the modern age of defining Christmas by seeing family and the present giving/receiving, Christmas for us usually lasts from a few days before, all the way until New Years day.

For us this year, it started by Christy and i going to see some of her extended family in KY. We saw her aunts and uncle and grandmother. It was a good visit. And a it was made a little nicer this year by the recent removal of toll booths along the route. The trip now cost us $2.80 less than usual. Yippie!

Christmas day itself was just Christy and i. Rather nice really. Just got to hang out and relax. OH - and open Christmas presents for each other of course :-)

Day after Christmas we did with Christy's mom/dad and brother (sis-in-law was too sick to come). That was a lot of fun. Only bad part was this was the first time we had to give envelopes as gifts... Our order from Amazon (made two weeks prior to Christmas) did not arrive until later. So had to give several people envelopes with pictures of what they will be getting. (Note to all who await presents: They have arrived. Our house/pet-sitter got them for us. They will be mailed out to you all as soon as we get back to TN) The funny thing this time was that we actually had Becca's gifts, but she was the only one not there. The three who were there (mom/dad/Matt) just had to open envelopes. Oh well. We (ok... i) spent the rest of the evening playing Guitar Hero (which Matt was kind enough to bring up from Birmingham). That game is fun! He got Guitar Hero II that night, but we just played Guitar Hero I for now.

The other attention getting present for that evening had to be Christy getting her Rhapsody edition Sansa. I was quite jealous, though excited. She played with it a little, but i then proceeded to steal it and play with it more as she worked on other people's presents (she crocheted several gifts this year - very proud of her, they looked great). I am sure this drove her crazy. I didn't mean to steal her present, but these things are cool and i didn't have one...yet...

The 27th we drove. A lot.
We actually made really good time and drove straight from Nashvegas to north San Antonio in one shot. Wasn't too hard at all really. Having a TDI (diesel) car that is really comfortable helps. We did the whole thing on a tank and a half of gas and rarely had to stop.

The 28th we hung out at my Mom's sister's place for a while and played on their new Wii. That thing is a lot of fun, though you do have to be careful that you don't smack your friends in the face while playing.

That afternoon we did Christmas with my dad's family in San Antonio. Much fun. Ate lunch, did presents, and then played board/card games together for...oh...4 hours or so i think. After a while we realized it was 8:30pm (thanks to my cool new watch) and we hadn't eaten dinner and we were all getting a little tired. So we packed up and headed to Taco Cabana for our first major dose of Texas tex-mex. Good stuff.

Then we headed back out to my mom's sister's and did presents with my mom's side of the family and my parents/sister. Much fun and many good presents there... and i got my Sansa! I congratulated Christy on biting her tongue and not giving away that i had one coming (she knew).

We also got a ton of DVD's (from many different people) and video games and board games, etc, etc, etc... I'm not going to try to name or comment on them all (hope no one is offended). I really have enjoyed (or will enjoy) all the gifts so far. I honestly feel very blessed and grateful. We have a lot of generous family!

More important than the gifts, of course, is getting to see everyone. We've had great fun this year visiting and playing with everybody...and more of that to come. For the first time in several years, we are going to be here tomorrow for the big "family Christmas" with my mom's family. Expected numbers are somewhere near 40-50 i believe. Should be much fun.

Anyway...last note is to say that the pictures included in this post were courtesy of my cousin Carly's new camera. It is equipped with WiFi and she can email straight from her camera. How insanely cool is that! When we got back to the hotel last night and checked our email, we had pictures waiting for us that were less than an hour old. Cool. Thanks Carly!