Christmas recaps

I can't believe it's been a week since Christmas. Craziness. We had a very nice Christmas considering how tough things are for us and our family financially. For some reason I expected a lot more of the joy to be sucked out of the holiday and have it replaced with worry. Thankfully I was all wrong.

Christmas eve found us at Nina and Nino's house celebrating with their family and friends. It was another year of good food, friends, family, adult beverages, games, Santa, presents, desserts, and all around holiday cheer. Of course, I took pictures. (Please excuse the scary red eyes. Too lazy to edit)

When we were all finished there we took our tired happy selves home and to sleep. Well, my boys slept while I did the last minute wrapping. I shopped, wrapped, and even shipped all of the gifts from us early...like in November...but there were a few I needed to take care of for my Dad. I'd put it off for too long and it was the day before deadline. 3 hours later I was done and took my weary ass to bed. Never again will I wait 'til Christmas Eve to wrap. Never.

Christmas morning. A little piece of me lights up when I wake up on the morning of December 25th. It's a complete Pavlovian response from the many excited years of coming out to see the tree even more full than it was when I went to bed. Also from knowing that I'm going to get to see and spend time with my family and friends either separately or together.

You see, Christmas day has almost always been spent with my Dad for as long as I can remember since my parents were never together. Thanksgiving at my Mom's and Christmas at my Dad's. And from the time I could drive I've enjoyed driving around to different people's houses to celebrate and soak up the holiday spirit. I guess those memories attached to the day make me smile and hopefully always will.

Once the momentary excitement ebbed and I realized how tired I was, I drug myself out of bed to get Lil Man up and ready. After showers and getting dressed we let Lil Man open up one gift from under the tree. He picked one from Hubbs' brother and family (yes! they sent something. amazing, I know.)

After that we drove to my Dad's house to spend the day there. After my sisters got done doing whatever they were doing upstairs, we settled in to open gifts. There wasn't much from us to Lil Man, but what we did give him was something he was really excited about. To make it a little more exciting I wrapped his brand new iPod touch in several boxes. It was fun watching him open them one at a time and laugh at each new box. The look on his face in the end was the best!

It was all very exciting and everyone was extremely generous. We had breakfast together when the chaos subsided and settled in to watch the Laker game. The kids got to work opening their presents and playing with them while we grown ups did a little of the same. It was nice for me to spend some time sitting and talking with my sisters for a little while. It's so rare that we do that and so infrequent that we're all together.

I was pooped when it was time to finally head home. Worn out. Done. Stick a fork in me. While I was indeed exhausted, I was undeniably happy to have such a great couple of days. And that, my friends, was my Christmas. :)

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I know this will post late since it took me so long to finish the entry, but I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. I hope something or someone reminded you of a reason why it's such a special time of year for most people. I know I got that and it was one of the best gifts I could have received. :)