The Day After

Christmas has come and gone for another year....and it was a pretty good one.  For one thing, it's got to be one of the warmest Christmases on record!  It felt weird but I'm not complaining for sure.   We were festive, we were prepared, and we had fun.  For once I had all of the wrapping done in plenty of time, and I was only sewing buttons and weaving in ends on TWO projects during the day on Christmas Eve.  Considering other years, that's pretty good.  Brian and I hosted this year, and all was well.  Dinner went off with only a slight hiccup and dessert was really lovely.  The house isn't even as trashed as it usually is the day after Christmas.  No gift returns this year, and the best surprise was Alton Brown tickets for Brian.  All FOUR of us are going to see his show in April.  It was a great family secret and I'm particularly proud of the boys for keeping it.

Today has been kind of a lazy day, and I feel really comfortable and happy.  We've let the boys run around and do whatever they like today.  That equals a huge blanket fort in their bedroom, breaking open geodes from the kit that was sent by Uncle Matt and Aunt Katie, eating copious amounts of treats and right now, building a robot from the kit that Will received from us for Christmas.  I spent part of it in new pajamas, reading "The Kids are All Right:  A Memoir" by Liz Welch and Diana Welch.  (It's a true story, and pretty riveting.  I had trouble putting it down.)  Later on I braved shopping and even that wasn't too terrible.  For the first time in 15 years, all of the wrapping paper and boxes/tissue paper have been purged and organized, and will be going back to the garage in better shape than they came upstairs.

Now tonight is a dinner of leftover pasta and meat sauce, and the movie Inside Out.  I'm loving this winter vacation.