Christmas

So, Christmas day in my parents house this year, was one of the best yet I think. Not only is it fun that my siblings are getting old enough that they also enjoy just being with family as well as everything else that goes with Christmas, but we were able to take our time this year! It was fantastic.

In past years, we've been doing stockings by 7 or so, and then beating off Matt and Janna away from the tree until Grammy and Dick get to the house so we can open presents. Everything is usually over by 1pm or so. But this year, we didn't even start our stockings until 9--it was great. I got over to my parents house at 9, in my pajamas, and we did our stockings. Alex got the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" in his stocking so we ended up watching that all together. If you haven't seen it, its a super cute movie.

After the movie we finally got dressed, and Grammy and Dick showed up at about 12:30, and at 1 we started the tree. Uncle Bill brought Aunt Crin over, so it was really nice to see her too.

We hung out the rest of the afternoon--watched a few more movies. Mom and Dad surprised the family with a new flat screen HDTV. So that was really cool. Even though I won't be able to enjoy it on a regular basis, it'll be nice whenever I'm over there. It sure does make a big difference, not only because of the clarity of the picture, but also the screen is so much bigger than the last tv that we're not straining to see it. With subtitles and stuff somebody used to have to go and sit right at the tv to read them, but not anymore!

The 4 of us kids went down to LLBean at about 10:30 as we always do on Christmas night to use the gift certificates we generally get as a gift. The sales are amazing on Christmas night--and its a fun tradition that Alex and I started when I was in college. But we didn't stay down there long because Janna has been sick and was just fading fast--so we didn't want to torture her very long, and we went home.

I'm working all this week (but I have next week off! whoo hoo!), so I knew I needed to go to bed anyway, so it all worked out well.