A Good Day to Stay In

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a wonderful day of family, food, fun, and much laughter. And for those with no family, a condition a number of people down here in Fla deal with, I hope you had a special and satisfying day as well. I had a full day myself, a full last 2 days when you come right down to it, and I'm pretty tired now. But it was definitely a good last 2 days.

I am kind of a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas. I like opening presents on Christmas Day and not Christmas Eve, I like a cold Christmas, preferably snowy (fat chance of that here) and I like turkey for Christmas dinner. Struck out in all 3 this weekend.

David, my oldest had to work on Christmas as he's a 911 operator so holidays are just another day for him. Admittedly he gets paid quite well to work on a holiday, but still its a day where everyone else is out with family and he has to work. So because of this, we decided to have the boys over on Christmas Eve for dinner and to open presents. Being a traditionalist I thought a nice simple dinner like the early Americans would serve would be fitting dinner on Christmas Eve. So I made Chicken Parmigiana. Didn't the Pilgrims serve that at the first Thanksgiving? Maybe it was George Washington at Valley Forge. Something like that. Actually Chicken Parm is about the favorite meal for all the kids and one of the few meals all the kids liked a lot growing up.

After dinner we adjourned to the living room for presents. Even though everyone is grown we still do stockings for the kids and the wife and I do it for each other as well. The kids all got new wallets from a local leather manufacturer. They do some high end stuff for designers like Oscar De La Renta etc, using some really exotic skins. We knew about the place because it is owned by the father of a woman my wife used to work with. She quit working at the county to help out her dad as he got older. We visited there in November and picked up some wallets for the kids, one in lizard skin and the other in alligator for the boys and I'm not sure what the daughter's was. They also got some dvds and some candy including a big Reese's snowman. I got some Perry Ellis cologne which I have never worn before but is very nice along with a battery for my laptop as mine died. Some of my favorite chocolates, Mounds bars. For the wife, I got her some Chloe perfume, a gift certificate for a manicure and pedicure, some Bailey's filled chocolates and some Godiva chocolates. I also got her a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons cd. She and the daughter both went to see Jersey Boys this past year and they really enjoyed it. My wife has always liked Frankie Valli and now the daughter does too.

For Christmas we got David the oldest boy a new Xbox 360. We also got him some clothes including some long sleeved henleys and polos as its almost always chilly in the 911 center where he works. The younger boy Patrick got a new motherboard and power supply for his computer along with a Ninja blender/food processor and some assorted clothes. Sarah my not so little girl got a couple of pair of boots, a yearly pass to Universal studios, some clothes and a set of cookware she wanted. Needless to say they did ok.

My wife got a nice digital camera, a gold and emerald bracelet, a Tom Tom for her car and a carrying case for it. I got some shirts, a gold tie tac, an electric corkscrew and in the funniest thing of the day, not one but 2 e readers. My boys got me one and the look my wife got on her face when I opened that told me she had gotten me one as well. Which she did. So she will probably get the one the boys got me.

We made it a relatively early night as David had to work today. He brought Patrick over to the house on his way into work this morning. Unfortunately I was up already. I woke up at 5 am with a massive headache. Not hungover or sick as I didn't drink but a couple of glasses of wine yesterday. I don't get headaches very often but this one ranked up there among bad ones. I took 2 naproxen (Aleve) tablets about 5:30 and they had almost no effect. I took another around 8:30 and it calmed the pain a bit but not completely. We went to my sis in law's house for brunch around 10. The young kids got gifts and we all had a good breakfast which I didn't have to cook. We got home around 1:30. Patrick took about a 3 hour nap and I tried to get some sleep too but only got about 45 minutes. The girls went over to my other sis in laws house to prepare a standing rib roast. Once I got up from my little nap I prepared some loaded mashed potatoes which turned out pretty damned good. We ate well, drank a bit, had some pies for dessert and made it home at a fairly early time. Everyone was pretty tired but for some reason I could not get to sleep early. I was up past 3 am. And then I slept till 11 am today. Latest I've slept in quite a while.

Christmas day was a nice day. I ate brunch outside on my sis in laws patio facing the water (she lives on the beach) wearing just slacks and a long sleeve shirt. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, it did not suck. There was a good breeze blowing or I might have actually been hot instead of just comfortable. As the day wore on, it got cloudier and a little more breezy but stayed nice. I ate dinner on my other sis in laws screened in patio. A bit cooler, especially as the sun went down but still very nice. As the night went on though this front blew in. It rained pretty hard for a while last night and the wind was really blowing. Still is. And it got cooler. It was warmer at midnight last night than it is now and the temps are gonna fall to the 30s tonight. So my brother and sister (and Josie too) get a blizzard today and we get some chilly weather and some wind and rain. I do miss the snow.

Oh my, just looked at some web cams up in RI and it looks pretty nasty up there and getting worse. Definitely a good day to stay inside by the fire with a nice warm (possibly alcoholic) drink or two, both up there and down here. I don't envy anyone going to work tomorrow, the few that go anyway. I will be there bright and early myself. Doubt I will get too many calls from Financial Advisors in New England and NY.

There were so many other things I wanted to post about this weekend but I am just going on and on as it is so I think I will end here. Hope everyone is playing well, those of you in the virtual and real card rooms. Stay lucky you nuts.