Christmas 2011

First off, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and thank you to those who took time out to email me with info and opinions on my New Orleans scheme.

My Christmas started on Saturday when I drove up to New Hampshire stopping at some shops along the way to pick up last minute gifts. This is my first mobile Christmas and the hardest part was that I couldn’t set things aside because I didn’t have any place to store early purchases.

So I drove up to New Hampshire and straight to my friend’s house. She and the family had gone about an hour south for Christmas Eve so I had the whole place to myself. I poured a glass of wine and leisurely wrapped gifts by listening to Bing Crosby tunes. Everyone was home by 8:30, the reindeer and Santa were fed by 9:00, we read The Night Before Christmas, and the kids went to bed with relatively little fuss. Julie and I sat up drinking wine and playing scrabble, her husband did some wrapping, we did the Christmas stuff, and we were in bed by 1am. Apparently my sleeping in the living room on the pull out couch would have scared Santa away, so I slept in M’s room which was pretty comfy thanks to mega carpeting.

When I was a kid my sister and I would try to stay up to see Santa and catch him in the act. We would poke each other to stay awake and sneak down the stairs multiple times throughout the night. Not these kids: when they went down it was for the count and M got up at 6:30, his regular time. Everything was ripped open within thirty minutes and by 8am I was out the door and heading towards my parent’s house. They made me breakfast, gave me some awesomely useful gifts (Food!), and promised me a puppy. It was nice and low key, just the way Christmas should be when there are no little kids in the house.

After that it was off to see the L and S, the other set of kids (have you noticed that I tend to adopt families?). I had a nice visit and then headed out. Ham and Turkey and others delights for dinner (at 3pm) and then Christmas was over and we all collapsed. Well, there was some cleaning to do but Julie and I were in bed by about 9pm.

It was a fun time but I’m very glad it’s over. Christmas is always hectic, expensive, and hard on my car. I passed 198,000 miles this weekend! Oh! I also got rear ended by a very nice Venezuelan man in Dover New Hampshire on Christmas Eve. At the time I didn’t think there was any damage but turns out there’s a dent right on my trunk latch which is making the lock stick. Not like anyone would notice one more ding, but it’s my home!