Very Merry

Christmas has come and gone. I would like to personally thank the following businesses for draining my wallet. American Girl Doll company, Pottery Barn Kids Corp, and Gymboree Corp. There were other players in the mix but none had the uncanny ability of these three to so thoroughly abuse my paycheck.

Let me recall the highlights of the first week of my vacation. The first night after I got off of work I took three boys (two of them mine) to see the Caps game. It was the first Caps game for my two. It was the first actually hockey game for my youngest. They had a blast. I did too. The seats were great. We were eight rows up, center ice. The night was perfect except for when I got up and kicked over half of my seven dollar beer. I couldn't have just grabbed a five or six dollar Bud to kick over. Nope. Had to grab a Heine. The better beer when you are punting it amongst the seats.

There was going to a bar and watching football on Sunday with Nosaj. No guys tried to pick him up here so that was nice. But his Packers got walloped so he cried the whole time. I had on a Bills jersey in honor of E-bone, plus they were playing the Giants but it didn't help. And did you know you can actually see THROUGH a Miller Lite. It is like drinking urine flavored water or so I've heard. But the were on 2 dollar special so I knocked out a half dozen and complained about it the whole time.

There was the last minute shopping. Actually I went out early on Thursday and Friday mornings and had no hassles. I also went out Christmas Eve to buy food for Christmas dinner and met no snags either. The early bird beats the rush. I did get to see people filing into Costco at 10:00 when they opened on Friday morning. It was unbelievable. I was only there to pick up my Christmas cards I had done online the night before. So if you don't have it, it should be there soon. The didn't get mailed until Saturday afternoon. Nothing like last minute. Seventy five of those babies went out. There was the shock when I only paid 20 bucks for 75 cards and then twice that much for stamps. Damn lazy postmen.

Christmas eve had my parents over to exchange presents with us. Not much of an exchange for them. They show up with a car full of presents and walk out with a couple of items. But they keep coming back so I guess they haven't figured it out.

Then comes the evening meal at the wife's grandmothers. She only has to open the door. Everything else is done for her. And yet there were still issues. We decided to make it easier on the mother-in-law who had tons of presents and had made or bought all the food and move the festivities to her house. Oh no. Grannie says no. She can't be rearranged like that at the last minute. We must all come to her house. Personally I didn't care. Couple of beers and it doesn't matter where I am. Then crazy Grannie kept talking about this friggin cake she made. Said it was called 'Better than Sex Cake'. Well I am sure when you haven't had it in 100 years, cake is probably better. But I don't need you spouting the name all night in front of my kids. If she said it one more time it was gonna be 'Pillow over the old lady's head Cake'. But it was a good evening. Except....

Nosaj got a new camera and somehow deleted all the pictures he took of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. No pictures of Little Nosaj opening gifts. He hit a button to reset the camera to the factory defaults. Mrs. Nosaj was unpleased. And Father-in-law was sooooo very understanding. We got great one-liners all Christmas Day like 'Reset man' and 'Don't blame me, it's not my default' (that was my favorite). Santa or St. Nicholas as he is called in our abode wasn't as generous as both sets of grandparents. We limited the fat guy (not you dad) to three gifts per kid.

It seems like we are celebrating Hannakuh here. With all the different gift opening opportunities. The kids won't get their presents from us until the Epiphany in a few days. By then, I am sure they will have broken some of the other stuff anyways. I will get some pictures up soon.