Christmas Recap 2005

Well folks, we made it. We're home. I finally get to sleep in my own bed tonight. YAY. I can't wait. The kids are in bed and I'm on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. Thank God I don't have a lot of things to do this week. I want to rest and take naps whenever possible.

Let's see. Where did the fun begin? Oh yeah. Richard worked Friday night. I was doing so good with packing and getting things ready for Saturday (even had stuff in the burb!). I was thrilled to get Maeve in bed and was hoping that Kyra would go to bed somewhat early so that "Santa" could come. I put Kyra in her bed and she said her prayers. I had just turned the light out when I heard the most gawd awful noise. Yep. It's Holiday Vomitfest 2005! It was everywhere. I put her in the bathtub and washed EVERYTHING on her bed. Mind you, it's about 10:00 when all of this happens. I put her in front of the TV and let her watch a few shows with a bowl and a towel right next to her. I then talked her into sleeping in my room on the floor in her sleeping bag. I PRAYED that it was a fluke and set out the Santa gifts and finally went to bed. I slept like crap because I was sick with worry that we'd end up staying home and not go anywhere.

Richard walked in the door on Saturday morning and got Kyra up. Santa had come. Boy what excitement! Maeve slept in (LOL!) and didn't wake up till about 30 minutes later. So, Kyra got to open up gifts on her own. I loved hearing, "This is exactly what I wanted!" Ahhhhh....pure bliss. You'd never know that she was sick the night before. A fluke! GREAT!

Maeve and Richard both had a morning nap on Saturday morning before we left. We packed up our house (I'm not kidding) and left for La Grange around noon. Between Bastrop and Smithville, Kyra pukes again. Luckily, I had the huge bowl and the towel along. No more cookies for that kid. I gave her strict instructions to eat crackers and bread for the rest of the day.

Christmas Eve was nice. Maeve was hugely fussy though because toofie #4 had just come through that morning and it was a top one. Ugh. She also had a stuffy nose (still does). Amidst all of the activity, she DID NOT want to nap. We opened gifts with my mom's side. We draw names every year, so it's always fun to see what everyone gets. The girls got the motherload of toys and clothes. We ate some pork steaks with delicious sides! That night everyone left early and even Richard, the girls, and my dad went to bed early, so Lisa, Nathan, and I chatted around the fire pit till all hours. *yawn*

Christmas Day came and it's also my dad's birthday. So we left La Grange around noon and headed to Victoria. Lisa and Nathan brought their washer boxes to my dad's, so they played that. Maeve took and nap and so did I. That evening, we grilled hot dogs and enjoyed the hot ass weather. Then we opened gifts. Again, the girls got too much stuff. That night my sister had a ton of friends over for what seemed like the St. Joseph class of 1998 reunion. LOL!

Then yesterday happened. It was a calm day till around noon. We were supposed to be at Richard's grandparents' house in Austwell around 1:00. It takes about 30 minutes to get there from Victoria. It's noon and I'm loading things in the car. The night before, I asked Richard to take the gifts out of the burban for fear of someone breaking in our vehicle and stealing them (I have a thing about vehicles being left unlocked at night). So, he does that. He sets the trashbags full of gifts in the garage (can you see where I'm going with this?). Well yesterday was trash pick-up for my dad. My doting father never thought to ask us what was in those trash bags, so guess what? Yep, he pitched them. The garbage comes and gets them. We were leaving and I ask Richard, "What happened to those bags with the gifts?" All of a sudden I hear "Uh oh." I started flipping out. I mean REALLY flipping out. I spent all of that time and energy on gifts for 5 people (Richard's nieces and nephews and his mom). I can't stop crying. My dad feels horrible and apologizes like 50 billion times. I cry more. Then my dad leaves the house. I am still crying and tell Richard, "Well, we can't go to your grandparents' house without any gifts." So Richard and I head to Target. We are there on the WORST day. It's jam packed. We buy some bags and in the meantime, my dad calls and says, "I found the garbage truck! I'm following it to the dump and will salvage what I can." O.M.G. Richard and I go back to my dad's and Kyra joyfully proclaims that indeed she got to open all of their gifts! LOL! The shirts were all fine. The photography and the calendar for Richard's mom were not. No biggie. We put the shirts in bags and headed to Austwell. Little did we know that there was more fun to be had!

First off, I must say that there's always been bad blood between Richard's dad and his grandparents. This goes waaaaaay back. I've heard stories. Richard's dad didn't make amends with his parents till he was on his deathbed. It was all very sad. Since then, it's been understood that we'd try to be nice to these people. A few suggested that we have Christmas at their house this year. Fine. I had to pull Richard's teeth to get him to agree to go, but we did. We get there a little late and were happy to find out that Richard's sister wasn't even there yet. Saweeeet! I walk in and immediately see the motherload of gifts and I SWEAR that I was thinking to myself, "We'll be here till tomorrow unwrapping all of this!" We ate and Richard was very concerned about what he was eating. He wanted to know who made what for fear of being drugged I guess. Also, this house was starting to freak me out. It's like NOTHING has been touched since 1962. Very weird. Very scary. I didn't want to lay Maeve down anywhere to change her. I would have gone back to the car to do that. I'm serious. Anyway, we start unwrapping gifts and we unwrapped Beanie Baby after Beanie Baby after Beanie Baby from Richard's grandmother. They were for us adults too. It was ridiculous. I bet we got 50 (no that's not a typo) Beanie Babies. Ugh. The kids got awesome gifts from Grandma Debbie, Uncle Jerry, and Aunt Marie and Uncle Matt. But the whole Beanie Baby thing really ruined the good gifts. Honestly, it was absurd. It took us 2 1/2 hours to unwrap all of that crap. Richard left some on the back of the boat for sale! PIMP! We packed up and left. Richard was driving and I was scared for my life. He was *that* ticked off. I mean come on! You have money, so buy some NICE gifts! And telling everyone to "Slow down!" was pitiful. We would have been there till 6 this morning if everyone would have unwrapped one by one. It was baaaaaad. Richard was making me laugh on the way home and said, "Give me a Beanie Baby." I asked, "Why?" He said, "Just give me one!" What did he do next? Yup. He started throwing them out the window! I bet that they saw them this morning. LOL! He kept saying, "What did they do? Rob a McDonald's to get all of these?" He told his mom this morning what he did and she nearly died she was laughing so much. That's Richard for ya.

We came back today with the motherload of gifts. I called the girls' Godparents to see what they were doing on the way back and they were about 5 miles ahead of us on the road, so they came back here to the house and gave the girls their gifts and Kyra and Jake got to play for a bit. I'm so beat and am ready to get back into a routine! My house is a wreck, but I don't care. My girls are happy. Kyra is extremely excited over the fishing pole that daddy got her and the portable DVD player that Papoo got her.

And I love the new Christmas Carol that Melissa made up on Alien's blog...."Oh holy shit, we have too many presents...."

Exactly.