It isn't entirely over yet, but the "big bang" part of the holiday has come and gone. It was a little different this year, since my parents weren't here. I can only think of two Christmases in the last 17 years that we haven't spent with my parents and we all missed them. The girls even commented that it didn't seem like Christmas without Grandma and Papa here. We're excited for them to come home tomorrow, but we're happy they've had a wonderful visit with my sister and her family and my brother in Alaska (although they've been much colder than we have...it's been shirt sleeve weather all week!).
I'm proud to announce that my Christmas cards were actually mailed before Christmas this year. OK, so they got mailed on Christmas Eve. Technically, that counts as "before Christmas." LOL Maybe next year they'll get mailed earlier than that. I'm working on it!
We had a wonderful Christmas. We got a Wii and lots of games, and the girls got Nintendo DS's with lots of games. I have to put in a plug for the Personal Chef game -- we made a recipe from it last night and it was really good! Brain Age 2 and Crosswords have also been a huge hit. The favorite Wii game so far is Mario Kart (although I can't drive that darn thing to save my life!). The girls tried the Dancing with the Stars game last night and had a great time -- it's a good workout and we laughed and laughed and laughed.
DH and I ventured out yesterday morning to do some returns and found no lines in the stores (two people in front of me in one store but I didn't even wait 2 minutes)...none of the insanity I have come to expect on the day after Christmas. Then yesterday afternoon the girls and I went to the grocery store and stopped in at Target. Oh my goodness. It was a madhouse! Apparently everyone slept in yesterday and waited to hit the day after sales until afternoon. I was proud of myself for not buying any wrapping paper, gift boxes, gift bags, or tags -- I didn't even make a tiny dent in my stash this year!
I haven't been in to the office all week -- haven't even called in -- and it's been nice. I'm thinking about going by the office today to clean out my e-mail inbox...not to respond to anything, but just clean out the junk. I get the dreaded "your mailbox is over the allotted size" message every day and just thinking about how much stuff will be waiting for me when I go back to work in January is scary!
We're enjoying spending time together and just relaxing. Nothing has gotten done around the house (so much for my big plans of getting the house cleaned and organized while I was off work for two weeks!) but we've just been hanging out. I think it's important to do that, and especially important to do that together as a family. We've been eating lots of cookies (gotta love Pillsbury ready to bake cookies) and just spending time together.
I hope everyone has had a wonderful, happy Christmas filled with family, friends, fun, laughter, and love!
