How was Christmas? It was good. Really good. Chloe woke up at 5am followed shortly by Ben and Gabriel. This meant that the dog woke up and needed to go out and get fed and take care of his usual routine. So I got up at 5am and grumpily took care of these things before pointing out to the kids that they were up way too early — the sun was still two hours from coming up — and not coincidentally, I also was two hours from getting up.

I told them they could open their stockings and wait until 7am for everyone else to get up.

I think it was some kind of exquisite torture for them waiting those 120 minutes for me and Liz to get up. I savored every second!

Normally my folks are with us for Christmas but they stayed home this year. We had a more moderate number of presents under the tree and the kids loved virtually everything they got. Although I told my brother that the scarves his wife knitted for the ladies in my family were nice and the yarn was very cool I didn’t get a chance to say anything to her directly, and I should have. I will.

The big gift I got this year was the tremendous Calvin and Hobbes hard-bound retrospective collection! I was very excited about it. Its now cozying up next to the similar version of the Far Side collection. They’re both beautiful sets and I’m slowly working my way through it.

Liz whipped up a delicious breakfast around 9:30am and we spent the rest of the day cooling our heels and enjoying the new presents and having everyone home. The kids behaved really well. Ben and Gabriel spent their whole day in their room working on a Star Wars Lego Clone Trooper Troop Transport. Gabriel usually sat nearby playing a Pokemon game (emerald or fire) on his new gameboy. The girls played well together sharing some crafty-things they got and playing with their new dolls.

I read the newspaper and took the dog for a walk and read some of the Calvin & Hobbes book (vol.1).

It was great!

On Monday we went to the mall to exchange a top-notch 14″ frying pan I had gotten for Liz at William Sonoma. She said it was too big and that she would prefer the 12″. I know, a frying pan sounds like an awful present, but it was the kind of pan Liz would never have gotten for herself. It was pretty expensive. And in my mind that puts it in the “gift” category. She says she likes it and appreciates it — she also hasn’t hit me with it yet, so I choose to believe I got her the right thing. We also went to Borders and used the gift cards that the kids great grandmother sent them. Finally we enjoyed a nice lunch at Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. Yippee! Liz isn’t crazy about the place but me and the kids really like it.

We took down the tree already. I thought it was too soon. I enjoyed looking at it and everything. Its very nostalgic and I like to sit in front of it smiling. It makes me feel good about where I am in the universe. But Liz has been preparing for christmas for months now and I guess she’s a little christmas’ed out. She said she really would like it to get out of the house because its taking up too much space.

Its fine really. I would have preferred that it stick around longer, but my feelings weren’t strong on the issue.

Now I have one more day back at work and then I will take nearly another week off. Beautiful. I’m looking forward to spending some time outside — maybe checking out some geocaches I haven’t been to. I can’t take being stuck in the house and I like going for walks in the woods. I’m thinking of heading a little farther north — Harold Parker State Park and Bradley Palmer State Park aren’t really all that far, but its far enough to make it an adventure.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Happy Festivus!

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