Merry Christmas!

Well...Christmas...what to say. This year I wasn't all that excited about the holiday. It's just not the same when you're a grown up without children. The excitement just isn't there like it is when you're young. Truth be told I was feeling a bit homesick for my youth this season. Therefore, I wasn't really looking forward to the holiday. I must admit that I really enjoyed the holiday none the less. It was predicted that a big snow storm was going to blow in so I decided I'd rather spend the night at my mom's than deal with slick roads late at night. Great idea, except the storm blew in just as I was loading up the car with presents. Oh if I'd only loaded the car when I first got home that afternoon like I thought I should, but no I decided to take a shower, blow dry my hair really nice, and then take four trips out to the car during a blizzard. Needless to say I was a bit damp by the time I got on the road. I also felt bad leaving the cats at home with no one to feed them for more than a day so I brought them along. Nothing like driving through a blizzard with a cat howling in fear in the back seat. We did nothing very special that night since it was just me, Jason, my mom, and John. We did our traditional gorge on sweets and movie watching. By around 1:30 am I was ready to turn in, shut off my light, crawled in bed and proceeded to try and sleep-except my boy cat (big baby that he is) sat outside my door and howled. After two hours of trying to ignore him I let him in and got no sleep because he was crawling all over me and pretty much wanted to sleep on my face. Finally, at 6:45 am he settled down and I got to doze off until the rest of the family got up around 9:00. Despite the sleep deprivation it was really fun to sleep over (just not with cats!). I loved lounging in PJ's and not eating breakfast until 11:00. We didn't even open presents until 1:00 that afternoon. Actually, we opened presents 3 times that day. First, with the four of us, later when Greg & Leigh and then Grandma & Grandpa, and finally when all of the step brothers came. It made for a very festive and jolly day. So, what I found is that there is something about spending the night that makes Christmas more Christmasy and makes it feel like the good ole' days.