Christmas 2005: It's A Wrap

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. I went to work today to rest and relax.

It feels like I did nothing but keep going from Friday on. We started cleaning house on Friday afternoon. I wrapped presents until after midnight Friday (while watching It's A Wonderful Life). Saturday was more house cleaning and I also cleaned up the yard while S wrapped presents. I took a break from that to sing in two Christmas Eve services, making it another late night. Christmas morning started about 7 AM when I drove to our daughter's apartment for breakfast and opening presents with our grandson. Then it was back home for more house cleaning while S cooked part of Christmas dinner. Meanwhile, it was so nice in the afternoon that we had our front door open and our cat snoozed in the sunbeam in our entry way (must be nice).

Then our guests began to arrive. My parents and my brother came first. Snoopy stuck around since they're nice folks (and mom said Snoopy was a pretty kitty), but he scrammed as soon as my grandson and his mom arrived. Another daughter arrived, then a brother-in-law, then my nephew (and his girlfriend and her very young sister), and finally a niece and her daughter. We had a nice visit and a nice buffet-style dinner with ham, chicken, and meatballs, etc. Of course, Princess, our little chihuahua-mix was quite the social butterfly throughout the entire affair.

I got what I asked for - War of the Worlds on DVD, and Nicole Nordemann's CD, Brave. That's all I asked for, but I got a few bonuses, including cash and gift cards (always welcome).

My wife also got me a really cool book, The D-Day Experience: From the Invasion to the Liberation of Paris by Richard Holmes (I am a World War II buff). This is not just a book, but it includes reproductions of actual maps, and pages from diaries, log books, letters, leaflets, a Stars and Stripes newspaper, etc. Very interesting.

Anyway, I went to bed at about 7 PM last night (on our new bed sheets) and read a little bit of my new book with a very tired little dog curled up next to me. I didn't last long - I was done by 8 PM after reading the same paragraph over and over. You know that great feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night after a very deep sleep thinking you've already slept the whole night and the alarm clock says you've still got a ways to go? That happened to me twice - at 10:58 and 2:02 - way cool!

Anyhow, that was my Christmas. Only 363 days to the next one.