Christmas 2006

We finally completed our Christmas tour for the year (well, almost, we still have one more delayed one to go).

This year, for our family Christmas, we stayed at a motel in town. Anna and Cameron just love going to motels and we had talked about this for a long time and they were very excited. We packed up everything after work on Friday the 22nd and headed to the Comfort Suites. We had dinner, swam for a while, then went back to the motel room to open presents. We decorated the room with lights and had our own spread of snacks and drinks. It was a lot of fun and this is a tradition we plan to continue.

We got up on Saturday and headed to Fort Wayne and Steve and Pam's house for Christmas #2 with my family. We had our usual paltry spread of food and drinks (yeah right, no one leaves hungry after one of our gatherings). Mom made her Cracker Jack, which I hadn't had in about 20 years. Pam made her famous beans and dad had his famous turtles. We then had our "dirty" gift exchange, in which you have the option of opening a gift or "stealing" one that was opened before your turn. My family was fairly nice and not too many gifts changed hands (and there were alliances at work to trade gifts).

Steve and Pam had houseguests that night, Allan, Carolyn and baby Conner. Actually, Carolyn wasn't there, she had to work, but dad and baby were there and it was great to have them as part of our gathering. Steve and Pam are going the extra mile and then some to give them a place to live while they get back on their feet. For many years, having a baby in the house would be Steve's idea of some sort of inner circle of Dante's Hell. So them agreeing to take this couple in was certainly admirable and a major disruption of a lifestyle they are used to.

We left Fort Wayne and returned home. We got the kids to bed fairly early because this was the night Santa would visit. Anna is not so sure about this whole Santa thing. She's convinced dad is involved somehow. Cameron, however, is very much into it. He was easily convinced that he had to get to sleep so Santa could visit. When they woke up the next morning, Santa had indeed come and they got to open their Santa gift and go through their stockings. Thus ended Christmas #3.

We spent the next few days at home. Didn't do much at all, just hung out with the family. Had a few of the pastor's kids over for the afternoon to play with the kids. Otherwise, just took it easy.

On Thursday, we headed down to Kentucky for Christmas #4. Dorene's parents have a cabin at Lake Cumberland. We spent two nights there, and then the third evening Dorene's brother, Rob and his wife, Connie, came over. Also present were niece Shon and her new husband, Aaron, along with their child, Jace. Rounding out the guests were nephew Sam and his looooong time girlfriend, Brittany. We also did a "dirty" gift exchange and Dorene's family is much more ruthless than mine. Gifts got stolen and stolen and it seems just about everyone had their hands on at least two different gifts. I started out with a basket full of Ale-8, which is Kentucky's official soft drink. This isn't just some passing fancy, Kentucky folks are passionate about their Ale-8. Go out to breakfast, and people order up a bottle. It's basically a type of ginger ale. Nothing all that great, but boy do people go crazy over it. I like it okay and figured a basket of it would be nice to take home. But no, Shon's husband steals it, despite my cries of, "But I'm from Indiana and can't get this stuff up there." Didn't matter, my desperate pleas went unheeded. Like I said, Dorene's family much more ruthless with this exchange. I ended up with some bath towels and Dorene ended up with, I'm not sure what. But it was a blast and we don't get to see Robert, Connie, Sam and Shon very much, so we really soak up the time we have with them. Cameron absolutely had a meltdown when we had to leave. He loves his Uncle Robert and wanted to go home with him.

We came home late on New Year's Eve. Got home just in time to see the ball drop in Time's Square. Ooh, yuck, I have to go back to work on Tuesday. Dorene gets another week off (sort of, we'll get to that later).

This weekend, we'll have Christmas #5 at Dorene's parents. No, our kids are not spoiled.