This year Christmas was a little different for my family.  My dad had surgery a few weeks ago and wasn't up to making the trek up to my Grandmothers house for the traditional Christmas Eve celebrations.  So, the circus of Christmas 2010 started with due apprehension.

Cue Friday morning.

The plan was that my mom would come to my place, we would then take my Jeep up to my Grandmother's to exchange presents and have lunch with her; just the three of us.  Then we wold turn around and scurry home to spend Christmas Eve with my dad, Mamaw, sister and niece - the latter two were driving in and slated to arrive mid-afternoon.

This is what happened:

I sort of knew my mother was going to arrive between 10 & 11 am.  I wanted to get up earlyish and do some revisions; time is seriously running out on me people!  I woke up around 9:30, and called my mom to see where she was and how long I had to get ready.  Writing was out of the question.  She told me I had an hour; plenty of time to laze about for another ten minutes, luxuriate in a long shower, and then get down to the business of getting ready for the day and loading up presents.

Thirty minutes later I'm in the shower, I've just turned the water off and I hear my phone in the bedroom going off and someone knocking on my door.  I have this sinking feeling my mother has just played me.  I do not run to the door and throw it open - I'm more practical than that.  I check the phone - yes, 5 missed calls from my mother, and only then do I open the door.  By this point I know she's played me but I'm playing dumb because playing dumb is fun.  She claims she didn't realize how close she was - yeah right.  I get dressed and she says I need to come out and look at something on dad's truck.  Right.  Now I know I've been played.

So barefoot, and holding my makeup I go out to look at my dad's truck - and find the #1 present on my list this year.  It's a boxspring - excuse me - foundation for my bed.  I've been sleeping on just a mattress, which considering my Ikea bed means I'm sleeping about twelve inches off the floor. It's not a big deal, but I'd still like a boxspring, ya know?  So there is appropriate squealing and then figuring out how to get it into my room and situating my bed so now it has this awesome foundation on it.  I'm very happy with this.

Then once everything was loaded it was off to Grandma's in McKinney!  We spent about an hour up there, and then motored back to my place.  By this time it was raining cats and dogs; we passed about four or six wrecks on the way to my apartment alone.  It was crazy!

We made it back to my parent's place around 4, I barely beat my mom which was good since my dad had finally managed to find a dog that fit what my mom wanted and had it delivered.  His name is Matt and he's a Australian Sheppard.  My mom's old dog was a Boarder Collie/Australian Sheppard mix with a half black half white face - Matt has that same half and half face, but he's much smaller.

Christmas Eve was spent with the family, or at least most of it was.  My sister and niece haven't been to a Christmas with us in ages and my niece is now 16 after we had dinner - neither of us was very interested in hanging around and watching bad tv.  So I kidnapped my niece and we went to go see Prince Caspian!  That was cool.

Christmas Day started at 8am for me.  I hate 8am.  I'm still a little bitter that I had to get up at 8am.  But getting up at 8am was what happened!  The morning was pretty typical; breakfast, presents, everyone going their own way with their presents.  During this time Meka (my niece) and I stole the tv remote and turned on The Nightmare Before Christmas; I knitted and she crocheted.  It was nice. 

There was a big lunch, during which I ate hardly anything at all.  I'm not a big fan of traditional Christmas foods.  But I do love turkey legs!

The afternoon was spent playing Chickenfoot (a domino game) and then Monopoly.  I hate Monopoly, can I just say that?  It's a measure of how much I love my family that I played at all.  I did get an exit strategy plotted out when my best friend, Zibby, proposed a trip to the theater to see Tangled.  It was salvation.  Except - when I got home they wanted to pick back up where we left off.  Ug.  We played until I was really done - and then I drove home to sleep on my comfy new bed in peace and quiet.  I love my family, but I'm glad Christmas is over.  Next holiday please!