Merry Christmas!

In order to avoid a negative impact on my life, as you may have guessed, I wrote this journal entry after the fact. I'm always way too busy on Christmas day to keep up with writing.

Forest and I were awakened at 8 AM by our alarm clock, squawking away as usual. (It really does sound like you might imagine a dying goose might.) Actually, I was awakened; I was WIDE awake... but Forest was sleepy, so he snoozed a little bit while I cuddled him silly. Even as an adult, I never have trouble getting up on Christmas morning; and Forest actually had trouble snoozing, too. We ended up snuggling in our nice warm bed until I couldn't really stand to wait anymore, and ran off to the kitchen to make some coffee for him. Forest is always happier about mornings after a little coffee; but on Christmas morning it's just a warm-up sort of thing.

Our first Christmas of the day was just for the two of us. It was nice to have the ninja room and Christmas tree all lit up, and share our gifts so merrily! I think Forest liked the things I got him quite a bit, and I was equally happy with my presents! He is so thoughtful. Still; the best part was getting to be with him, and realizing that this is our second Christmas of a zillion made me very happy. We snuggled, tore into gifts, kissed, and snuggled some more. I know, I'm probably making you ill.

**Omit scene of much snugging and kissing.**

After our private Christmas celebration, we hopped into the fastest shower of the year, and managed to get ourselves and all of the presents to Bill and Kathy's right on time! Kirstin and Allyn were both rather excited, and Kirstin was already sporting a new outfit from one of her previous 4 Christmas get-togethers. The Collinses were happy to show off their newly-remodelled bathroom, which immediately made me wish I had the time, money, or space to make ours look so nice. Our bathroom is about 8 feet long and almost four feet wide, and we think it used to be a pantry before there was indoor plumbing. It would take a LOT of imagination (and maybe a wrecker ball) to make our bathroom look nice.

I digress. After the admiration of the facilities, the kids started their rending of packages. I must say that Kirstin was very well-behaved this year, and I was proud of how grownup she acted; and she still managed to be childish enough to enjoy getting her gifts very much. I saw a lot of giggles and smiles from her this Christmas, which was a very nice thing.

Forest and I mostly got her clothes this year, which is what she really needed, and a new winter coat; hopefully one large enough to keep her arms covered for the rest of the winter. She seemed to like our selections, which was a relief. Forest and I supervised from the couch, sipping our coffee and trying not to let the mess overtake the rest of the house, which Bill and Kathy took turns at the griddle. Kathy's pancakes are a Christmas tradition not to be missed. They were very tasty, indeed.

One bit of humor among the adults in the room was a gift from one of Kirstin's maiden aunts, who could NOT have known what she was getting into. The aunt in question asked Bill and Kathy what they could get for Kirstin, and they suggested that anything from the American Girl catalog should be a safe bet. The innocent maiden aunt, who has never had children of her own, picked out a book from the American Girl library, called The Care and Keeping of You: A Body Book for Girls. It's got everything about womanhood in it, with details, and pictures! I'm not the least bit offended by this; but I think it caused quite a wave of embarrassment as Kirstin read it aloud to her aunt at her Grandma's Christmas celebration on Friday night. We all shared a private chuckle, and agreed that if Bill and Kathy would house the Brittney Spears MP3 Player doll at their house, I would take the 'Body Book' and handle the onslaught of ensuing questions. Kirstin is already hitting me up for a training bra. Yikes.

Somehow, we managed to get out the door from Bill's house exactly on time, with Kirstin in tow, and all the correct things in our car; stopped by our house to drop off the opened presents and pick up the unopened, and hit the road for my mom's house. We were only a minute or two late in arriving, and I considered that to be pretty good timing! As it turns out, the family had plenty of time to open gifts and hang out before dinner was ready, and no one seemed to feel inconvenienced by the limitations of our schedules! That was a very nice thing. Everyone at my mom's was warm and relaxed, and we got to see relatives from North Carolina and Ohio, too! Sam's whole family was there, with the exception of my stepbrother, David, who was out west with his fiancee's family. It was a very nice get-together.

After dinner Karen, Jim, Laura, Forest and I sat down with Mark and Kirstin to play "Clue", which is the board game Kirstin got for Christmas. We had a good time, and Kirstin seemed to learn the game quickly.

Then, in what seemed like no time at all, our afternoon there was over, and we headed for Forest's family's get-together, which was at his sister's house in Lansing this year. At first Forest and I were both a little stressed, because we were afraid we'd be late; but in fact we managed to get there before anyone (including ourselves) expected, so we were pleasantly suprised.

As usual in Forest's family, we played some games, and the gift exchange lasted a couple of hours, since in his family everyone watches each other and they take turns opening gifts. Darcy and Sean had made stockings for everyone, which was a lot of fun, and Kirstin was thrilled to get a Power Puff Girls playset, which kept her attention for the rest of the evening.

The party dissolved around 9 PM, and I was glad that we could stay until the very end, this time. Kirstin was a great sport, and very well-behaved, so we didn't feel the need to leave early. We had talked with her in advance, and she understood that she would probably feel tired by the end of the day; but she explained to both of us that she felt that she was old enough now to control her behavior, even when she was tired.

She delivered on her promise, and we were really pleased. She was almost asleep by the time we got home, but managed to wake up just enough to get her teeth brushed and let us shuffle her off to bed. Forest and I were pretty tired, too. We tried to snuggle on the couch and watch Army of Darkness, but ended up falling asleep around 11:30 at night. Poor Forest was so far gone that it was hilarious. When I woke him and said we should go to bed, he said, "Okay." I got off the couch, and went to brush my teeth, figuring he would be along shortly. When he hadn't appeared a few minutes later, I went out to see if he was still asleep on the couch. He wasn't; but he'd left the lights and the TV on. Strange. I turned them off, and then went to the bedroom, to discover that he had gone to our room, turned out the lights there, and gone to bed. He was already tucked in, and snoring as though he'd been there for hours.

I laughed at him, and soon joined him.