X-Mas Recap

My Christmas was rather boring (at least by my family's standards) though my grandmother still thinks it was crazy. My parents drove in from Indiana on Dec 23rd, but I didn't actually see them till the 24th. I worked on Christmas Eve because I didn't want to use a vacation day and knew I'd get a lot of work done because no one would be in. Plus they let us out at 3, which was nice. That night my parents and I went to a Christmas Eve dinner that we've now been extended an invitation "for life." It was with family friends that we did the 3-day with, and they cook 12 meatless dishes. The dinner has grown and now includes about 35 people. They split families up at dinner so you're at a table with a bunch of people you don't really know...always interesting. We ate and ran because of course the Notre Dame game was on.

FINALLY, no more talk about how Notre Dame can't win a bowl game. We decided that Jimmy Clausen has the same cold weather issue as Brett Favre. So if we just scheduled all away games for the month of November...and possibly October...we should be ok. I'm really disappointed that Kyle Rudolph wasn't more productive because I wanted lots of cheesy Santa Clausen and Rudolph headlines in the paper the next day. It was a great game though wasn't it. I was so bored by the 4th quarter that I hooked up my Wii, played 5 games of Wii tennis and took a shower.

Speaking of my Wii, I get to open one present on Christmas Eve and just told my mom to pick one out and hand it to me. Guess what...the Wii. So then the next morning when I open presents, my last present was mosaic grout. I think I did something backwards. Isn't the big present last? Anyway, I also have a Best Buy gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so if anyone has Wii recommendations I would appreciate it. Also while opening presents, my dad opened a present that he was giving to me, but it took a long time after opening it and staring blankly at it for him to realize what had happened.

Then we went to visit my grandfather at the "retirement community" which is usually painful as he complains about the place stealing all his money and how Donovan McNabb is a bum. But on Christmas, he was actually interesting as he told us how a burst appendix ruined his professional baseball career and malaria saved his life. (His plane got shot down in the war but he wasn't on it because he had malaria.) It did get a little weird when he was talking about how Veteran's Day makes him sad because he thinks about the cannibals eating his dead friends.

We went back to my grandma's house (other side of the family) and then the kids came. We realized that we have at least one kid in every grade from 2nd to 11th. Crazy! I didn't think it was too bad except for the spontaneous outbursts of singing, mostly Sound of Music and mostly from my cousin Heidi.

Friday we went shopping....a LOT of shopping.

Saturday was big Christmas celebration. With all the family members from my mom's side along with my Aunt Jane's mom and sister. There were several awkward moments with people calling someone by the ex-wife's name, talking about how banks are stealing our money (Jane is a banker), talking about how the government is wasting our taxes (cousin Brian is a tax collector), and other various non-Christmasy conversations that no one really backed off once they became awkward. My dad said his tongue started to bleed he was biting it so hard.

Well, that's Christmas with my family. No screaming (except by kids which is ok), no punches thrown, no police, no drugs, so rather calm by our standards.