Christmas week report

First, let me wish all of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I of course will share with you how my Christmas was, but let's rewind a week and see how my predictions for last weekend went shall we. If any of you forgot, here they are again.

A) A) My sister-in-law will be within 5 minutes of arriving sitting on the couch on her laptop, and watching bad reality tv. It's just her thing.
Well as you know, never before have I been proven right more swiftly. It made it really hard to keep a straight face on Friday when I got home.

B) My wife being the optimistic person that she is, will approach everything we have to do with a great positive attitude. This will deteriorate slowly over the weekend until the realism of which I've tried to warn her finally comes to bear.
My wife actually surprised me a great deal with this, somehow in all the craziness she managed to keep a positive attitude throughout the entire weekend including the party.

C) Mother-in-law will plan 16 hours of stuff to do in 8 hours.
Yep, this one came true.


The party went ok. I didn't like it, because I don't like spending time with strange people that I don't know. My parents said they had a "lovely time", but they spent the majority of the party in the kitchen with me. Shanna and I even made a Walmart trip for more hot dogs, which we ended up not needing, but it was nice to get away. The SIL spent most of the party telling everybody about her upcoming trip to Cambodia. The MIL decided that turning 50 meant that she should flaunt everything she still had. She did this by choosing to wear a VERY sheer blouse with big poofy sleeves, and only a white bra underneath. So, in a word, "daring". My wife was simply amazing. She cooked the appetizers, served them, and took pictures. She was a walking dynamo. Any doubts or worries that I had that my wife could handle multi-tasking without breaking down were dashed in one afternoon.

Monday was a really ho-hum day at work, because I only had a half day, and only got to do one thing before lunch. Then I went to the ophthalmologist. After three different doctors looked at my eyes, a few things became very clear.

1) That bright light is definitely the cause of my migraines. After they dilated my eyes, even the low light in the doctor's office started setting me off. When they shined the light directly in my eye, I nearly pitched a fit.

2) The 15 dollar sunglasses I like from Walmart are surprise surprise......not adequate to shield my eyes from the sun. The doctor recommended that I get good quality sunglasses.

3) While I still have 20/20 vision, my left eye is straining, and my right eye is developing a stigmatism. Therefore, I've been prescribed glasses to lessen the strain on my eyes when I use the computer. They also have anti-glare for night driving, so the headlights don't trigger my migraines as often.

After the doctor, we headed to Lencrafters where I acquired some cool looking Ray Ban's for daytime driving, and ordered my glasses, since they didn't have the frames there. While, I know the glasses will benefit me greatly, I just can't help but think...ya know, I really didn't need to spend 340 dollars three days before Christmas. Then the wife and I had dinner at Friendly's, and then went over to my parents house so that my Dad could put back on my wife's license plate that I had accidentally torn off in an ice bank during the Sunday Walmart trip.

When I went to work on Tuesday, I found a surprise present from Santa on my desk. It was the movie Tommy boy on DVD. This is a reference to my first nickname at my job. I could've been offended, but I just laughed it off as office prank. After all, as my old boss said, Tommy Boy eventually got the girl, saved the company, and became the hero. So I guess it's not that bad of a nickname after. As Star Wars teaches us, a great many of the truths we cling to depend on our point of view.

Coming home Tuesday night felt great. I had 5 days off coming to me, and man was I looking forward to it. I went home, and I know that I should have written the Christmas cards for my family, but I wanted to relax as much as possible. I did put together my mini-SIL's trike with the wife, and that turned out very well I must say.

On Christmas eve, the wife and I slept in, and then got up to basically chaos. I had forgotten that my wife had invited my MIL and SIL to the movie Four Christmases as kind of a bonding thing at 12:50. So we get up and start preparing to go to meet them. My MIL comes home and says that she needs to wrap presents, and that she'll have to back out. We say fine, no problem. Then Lenscrafter's called, and my glasses are ready. Apparently the intelligent representative I talked to the night before who said a week, maybe two, was not the best example of Lencrafter's customer service. So I pick up my glasses and then go see the movie. My glasses look nice on me, I must admit. My wife picked out the frames, and jokingly says that we match now, as her glasses frames are a similar. They make me look older, and I've already noticed a difference while working on the computer. I'm still getting use to them, but I think they'll really help me over the long haul. I have noticed a decrease in the amount of migraines, having only one headache since I've got them, and that was a caffeine withdrawal headache. So they seem to be working. I saw the movie, and I'll cover what I thought about it in my movie blog. So going into Christmas Eve night, my wife headed off to work, and I stayed home to wrap her gifts and finish my family's Christmas cards. Hey, if it wasn't for the last minute, ALOT of stuff wouldn't get done in this world. So, after Wifey got home, and we packed up the car with all the Christmassy things that we needed for the next day and a half, we were off.

Stop 1) Christmas Eve night at my parents: This is always a nice tradition; we get to give our gifts early, and then just worry about getting gifts on Christmas. It's the tradition I grew up with, and it's comforting in a certain way. My cards were a big hit, my thanks to my wife for helping with them this year. My parents (especially dad) liked there digital picture frame, and my sis I think liked her water bottle better then the ipod touch we gave her. Either way, we gave, and got too. My wife received the clothes that she'd asked everyone for, this would basically cover all of her gifts save for my gift to her.
Gifts I got: Flip Mino HD camcorder, and a tool chest.


The flip was actually the gift I most wanted this Christmas, and it was quite a surprise to get it early. My parents wanted to give it to me so I could record Christmas, which was very nice of them. This also lessened the suspense of Christmas morning, because I had already gotten the gift I had wanted most.

After a shower and bed (we slept over at my folks), we woke up at 8 am, surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and headed off in our matching satin pajamas (ok, her's has polka dots and mine doesn't) to my Father-in-law's (FIL) house.

Stop 2) FIL's house

So we get that and give the mini-SIL her trike, which is a big hit. We then have a very nice Christmas morning; very nice and cheerful. We exchanged presents, and then had a great breakfast of pancakes and chicken sausage.

Gifts I got here:
DLO portable speakers for Iphone
Rock Band 2 wireless Guitar
Colorado sweatshirt and baseball hat
USB powered plasma ball











After breakfast it was back to my parents house for christmas morning over there. Here, my wife received more clothes, and I got some too. Two sweaters and three cool t-shirts that I had had on my Amazon list for a while. My other gifts were of the Blu-Ray variety, with me receiving:
The Dark Knight
Hancock
and Get Smart
On the format We ate more pancakes, and bacon this time, before crashing directly after Christmas "morning". We napped for an hour, and then went to our final stop.
Tangent: It was nice to see the "Penguin Race game" present for Christmas morning again this year. I found it on Amazon and had it sent to my parents. Funny enough my Sister saw it in the flea market, and bought it for them too. We had a good laugh about that on Christmas eve, I'll tell you. This very simple child's toy was a mainstay that only came out on Christmas morning, and it was nice to have it be there again. End tangent




Stop 4) Back at our actual "home", we celebrated Christmas with my MIL and my SIL. The highlights were
Wife got a suit from her mom which looks great on her
Wife's maternal grandmother gives a beautiful personalized Christmas tree blanket to the wife and me for our first Christmas together as man and wife.
I got my LED shower head from my SIL, and she loved the webcam we gave her. My MIL loves the digital camera we got her, and I liked the digital picture frame she got me. She also got me two Ties as a gag gift. When I first received them I really didn't know what to think. I hate Ties; I mean I'd rather wear a life threatening appliance then wear a tie. They serve no function, and are totally useless other then to get in the way. Then I saw the 50 dollar's each price tag on the back and nearly fainted. I learned later that she got them in a 2 dollar bin at one of those 5 dollar stores. For that price I'll keep them just in case, but I was really hoping for the hundred dollars. My wife gave my Planet earth on Blu-ray, the best High-Def nature documentary ever made. She also gave my Dragon naturally speaking 10 speech recognition software. I had wanted this software to help with blogging since my bad arm starts to hurt if I type too much. I wrote the latest post on my movie blog using only this software. It's quite impressive to say the least. I had to get a better microphone to use with it, and I need to train it to recognize my voice better, but I think I'll enjoy using this software for years to come. I also got to give my wife her gifts from me. These included a Knight saying "ni" t-shirt, 2 LEGO gameboy games, and three custom printed shirts with our Halo 3 team logo, and her gamertag and team number written on the back. This was a big hit, and I'm glad that me and Darque went ahead with the idea to surprise our wives with them. Speaking of Darque, his present to us was quite odd. It was a NERF wii game, and a game called "little big planet" for the PS3. My first inclination was to return it, but he convinced me to try it. I haven't yet, but the wife has, and she says its fun. It still looks dumb to me, but whatever.

So that was my Christmas. After presents, we had a fabulous meal, and as I look back on the day...I realize that I am a very fortunate person. As much as I complained about having to go to three different places for Christmas, it really did put into perspective that I have three families who want to see my wife and I on Christmas. There are people who have no family, and no where to go on Christmas. I have 3 places...honestly; I really am a lucky guy, and one that had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. I hope all of you had the same.

12/26: This was a recovery day. Just a day to veg, relax, and play with the new toys. I went out to dinner with the folks while the wife had work, and picked up that new Mic I was talking about. It was a nice calm day, and after minor caffeine headache subsided, it was really nice.

12/27: Today was very similar to the day before, except for the fact that my Dad came over to help install the new shower head, and put together the bathroom storage rack that we've had for years, and just never had the time or motivation to assemble. In exchange I put songs on his Ipod Nano. Other then that, my only other goal for today was to train the Dragon speaking program more, and update you. Mission accomplished.

Until next time...Happy Holidays