Christmas Eve

Ok, so yesterday turned out not to be so bad after all. Traffic was pretty light, for a change, which did help my mood.

Got to see my brother Mark who drove in from Texas for the holidays. It's only about 1800 miles from here to there (one way). Also finally got to see my cousin's baby who is just 5 months old. So the baby and my 20-year-old are second cousins. Not so weird since my cousin wasn't born until I was 16.

The family tradition is to eat in the late afternoon and open gifts after it gets dark, but because my aunt and uncle and cousins had to leave early to get to another engagement, we ate around 2-3pm and then opened presents. We were done with all of that around 5pm, which left my two nephews plenty of time to start playing with their toys while the adults had dessert and chatted and played with the baby.

We left my folks' house at about 7:30, got home an hour later, and let the kids open their presents from us. My wife and I decided to open our gifts later today (after the kids are back at their dad's) but we did exchange one gift last night. She has been dying for a Furby - she used to have one, which was lost when she lost her storage unit. I tried to find one last year (no luck) and for her birthday (no luck again) so I had grabbed this one up a few weeks ago and hidden it in the back of the car until I could get it upstairs to wrap it. The delighted look on her face was worth every bit of searching!

We were actually in bed before midnight. When's the last time that happened on Christmas Eve? No bikes to put together or Santa gifts to set out under the tree.