Good-bye, Christmas

Well, it's over. Another wonderful Christmas in the books. Dan and I had a great Christmas with my family. We spent Christmas Eve by ourselves, just like last year. We quite like our little tradition. We made a steak dinner, drank wine, opened gifts to each other, played Yahtzee and X-Box. We made spiked Serendipity Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, which I won in a blog giveaway. It was all fabulous. Then, we woke up at home Christmas morning. We snuggled, wished each other Merry Christmas, gave our girls Christmas cuddles, and packed up for Tucson.

Now when I was young, I wanted to open my gifts now. My sister liked to savor hers. She'd practically open hers slower just to cause me to panic. It drove me nuts. This year would have been Young Megan's perfect Christmas. We started our breakfast casseroles before gift opening. We had our traditional Christmas beer - it's usually Guinness, but we had something new this year instead. Another something new this year was my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Daniel, joining us. It was our first Christmas as a family of six, and it was fabulous to look around at so many happy Christmas faces. We took turns opening gifts, around and around in circles. After about an hour, the casseroles were done and we weren't, so we took a break to eat breakfast, then got back to it. Dan and I got an XBox Kinect from Daniel and Megan, gift cards to Chipotle, and clothes. My mom got Dan a red Rudolph nose. I got baking stuff, and a chocolate cook book. We also got something that 20-year-old me would have been pissed about: a Spot Bot. It's really awesome, trust me.

We spent the rest of Christmas day hanging out, preparing for dinner. My in-laws came down from Phoenix and it was great to see them for the holiday. We had a delicious taco bar for our Christmas dinner, and we were joined by more family. My grandparents, who usually spend Christmas with my very unjolly psychotic aunt, were able to join us for dessert. We built a fire pit in the back yard and spent the late evening talking and enjoying our company. It was a perfect Christmas Day.

The last couple of days were a blur of activity. Dan left Tucson for Phoenix Sunday afternoon after football. Between yesterday and today, Megan and Daniel ring shopped, florist shopped, phone, shoe, and cake shopped (with me, of course). We nailed down cupcake flavors, bouquets, and debated Megan's choice of two small wedding bands or one bigger band. She had a very productive week in Tucson in terms of the wedding, and they'll have only a few things to take care of on their next visit.

Now I'm home, enjoying some quiet that won't last long. The dogs are exhausted from 4 days in Tucson, and Dan's on his way home. Dan's brother, David, and his fiance, Alex, will be here in a few short days. We've got New Year's Eve plans with friends to figure out. They get married January 7th, so I'm sure they'll hit the ground running with last minute plans and arrangements, not to mention the family time with the Kingstons who will be arriving late next week. In the midst of it all is year-end close at work. I'm just hoping that on January 8th, I'm still alive and sane.

So good-bye, Christmas. You were so good to us all in 2010. Here's to a wonderful, prosperous and love-filled (Dan and I have 3 weddings to stand up in this year) New Year!