Late Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful day with whomever you spent the holiday with!

Christmas for me this year started out very different from every other Christmas I’ve ever had: ALONE.  But, don’t take that in a bad context, as I believe it’s a big showing of how I’m growing up and starting to live my own life, ya know? 

Anyhow, every single Christmas Eve I have gone to my Dad’s side of the family, then returned home to find our new PJ’s from the Christmas Angel and konk out until the morning when we would raid our stockings while the parents continued sleeping!  But this year it was quite different, as I woke up to my cat staring me in the face meowing at the top of her lungs.  Apparently, she was hungry.  Or maybe it was the crazy colored sky that got her going:

Anyhow, I ate such an exciting Christmas breakfast and then helped Honey open her Christmas present in her stocking:

My cat likes anything that rolls around like a ball.  Got some leftover foil from cooking?  Roll it up and you’ve got a basically free cat toy that will entertain for ages!

I packed everything up and headed out the door for the long drive to my parents for the next two days.  By the time I got there, mom had lots of stuff set out for us to munch on:

There was guacamole to go with that but we ate it up so fast it escaped the picture.  I actually ate a pear and banana, along with some of this while I was waiting for our late lunch/very early dinner meal in the oven.

Of course my plate consisted mostly of the roasted vegetables since this was the main affair:

Glazed ham

Potatoe Casserole

Roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli and squash

I had this, times two but was feeling funny so actually didn’t end up eating everything.  My stomach was a bit off by the time our meal came around…I think I waited far too long to eat a real meal and it made me sick.  That happens sometimes.

Then, it was time for presents!  But not before the annual “in front of the tree” picture we get every year.  Here is my brothers and I on Christmas morning in 2009:

And here were are 2010 Christmas evening:

Uh oh…we’re missing someone.  Oh wait, he’s been replaced:

No wait!  He’s in the computer….skyping with us from KOREA!!!

We miss you Craig! We’ll see you in a few days, at the latest a week!

By the time we finished our awesome and laugh filled skype session with my bro we headed back to the kitchen for some dessert!

I actually didn’t end up eating the cake on the right as it was way too sweet and just added in some extra pumpkin bread and a ginger snap my mom is famous for!

It was crazy to us how late we were opening presents since we’re usually done with that around 8am!  The madness!  But I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas with unforgettable family and laughs.

I ended up getting a new pie pan and pie slicer/spatula (since I don’t have one), a DVD player, books, some clothes and jewelry plus some other things I’m forgetting.  It was certainly an awesome Christmas of things I needed!  Yay!  Maybe I should have asked for snow chains for my tires…hrm.

Alas, it’s getting late and I’m exhausted.  Like I’m falling asleep reading this and probably writing very differently than normal; exhaustion always gets the best of me after waking up at 5am for no apparent reason!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and the New Year is just around the corner!  Yay!  What’s on your New Years list?