Since i have a 5 day holiday from work ( fri, sat, sunday, monday) we are heading out early and going up north to family.


We usually open 1 or 2 gifts christmas eve and have the usual lasgna eve dinner and go to christmas eve service. after we get back it is usually egg nog and cookies and alll the baked goods and junk food spread we spend all week baking. As well as a movie or two.

Sunday we wake up early have christmas breakfast and open gifts and start making christmas dinner ( thanksgiving: turkey and ham and all the fixings) christmas is duck and or roast beef and al the fixings

I am heading home to Denver on Thursday. I can't wait. I have over a week off from work...not coming back until the 2nd of January. Its going to be great. Much needed time. While home, I will hang with rents, see my friends, go skiing tons. And SHOP SHOP SHOP> Please Thursday come faster.

Today is La Pequena Navidad for us. For many years, our family has located Hispanic families who aren't going to have a Christmas and, with the help of our students and friends, made Christmas for them. These are the people who don't go to every social services organization around so that their kids have a massive holiday; these aren't the families who know how to milk the system. They don't even know that there IS a system.

These are usually the recent immigrants, the ones who live in housing that's so hidden and broken down that the authorities never condemn it. The housing with the sewage pipes that break and the windows that are continually broken by the creeps around them who don't want to deal with foreign-born neighbors.

We'll leave in a couple of hours and our day will have a lot of hassles--presents will come unwrapped on the trip, name tags will fall off, some recipients may not be home, we'll be in some scary neighborhoods. Tempers may get short.

But we know from years past that it'll be the most rewarding day of the season, the day we talk about all year. The day that we meet a lot of new friends and where our own children gain a new respect for what we have.

Me gusta mucho La Pequena Navidad.

Carnation, I love you. ;) You just keep giving and giving. Some people are simply amazing.... :)

Dec. 22nd--my Brother, Sister-n-law, and niece are coming to town!!!
Dec. 23rd---my family and I are taking a truckload of items to the Ronald McDonald House in the morning. I think this will be our new family tradition---I organized a small food/toy drive for the RMHC this year.
Dec. 24th--nothing to do!!! YAY!!!(think I'm gonna lay around watching movies all day)
Dec 25th--breakfast with Mom and Dad, then off to Grandmother's for lunch.
Dec. 26th--Mom's side of the family visits our house for Christmas dinner and fellowship.

Christmas eve: spending it with boyfriend's family and heading to 8:00 pm Mass with them. Possibly squeezing in a visit to a couple friends I haven't seen in a while.

Christmas day: Boyfriend is meeting the whole family.:eek: I figure get it all done in one fair swoop. Dinner is at my aunt and uncle's house.

Youngest brother is coming in tonight. Mom and other brothers are coming in town tomorrow. Youngest brother and I are going to see Pat Green tomorrow night. Christmas Eve, we'll just lay around, watch movies, cook, play games. Christmas Day, open presents, and a repeat of Christmas Eve.

(Rest of extended family is spread out b/w California and Las Vegas.)

Going to Toronto tomorrow!!

I will be seeing the Family and my two bestest friends...!

I'll be working mainly for the Holidays.

I take this back..we might not be going tomorrow :-(

A storm is supposedly passing through midnight and about 6-7 inches of snow....


oh well!

Looks like its going to be fairly quiet this year. The family will gather at Dad's house on Christmas eve for midnight mass followed by an early (1:30 AM) breakfast of seafood (French tradition) and present opening. Then we all crash and sleep till mid morning and then go visit friends and drop off presents. We usually do dinner about 4 PM. Will not be anything like last year's blow out in England but should be fun. Dad wants to do a "game" dinner with New Orleans style turtle soup, then a fowl course of wild ducks, phesants, and boneless quail. Then a main course of roast boar butt and a haunch of vennison. That is the plan, now we will see what he can actually organize. The wines should be good but I think they are keeping the best stuff for either New Years or Twelvth Night. That is when Grand Dad will open a magnum of his Fonseca 1945. Anyway, this year looks to be about 18 for dinner as opposed to the nearly fifty last year at Westin-on-the-Green in England. Since I have been laid up for several weeks while the medical types attacked some secondary infections caused by Iraqi scrap iron left over from my deployment I think everybody wanted to cool it until they were sure I would be up and running instead of wandering around in an anti-biotic induced haze. I kind of feel like I put a damper on the family celebration. Anyway, I am pretty much back to normal and my exams went better than I thought they would (thanks to the kindness of all my teachers, I suspect), so it looks like I will graduate as planned and not have to blow off this semester.
Hope all of you have a right Merry Christmas and a grand New Year and that all good things come to each and everyone of you! Joyeux Noel!

I'll be in Orlando, as always. I can't wait to get home.

I'll be in South Florida and then I'm heading off to London with my family!

Today - finish packing car drive to Oregon (just south of Portland) stay overnight and visit with grandfather (I am bringing him chocolate chip cookies as a gift)

Tomorrow - leave before noon, drive to San Francisco

Friday - wrap gifts,

Call Glitter650 because it is her BIRTHDAY

Make the annual Christmas Eve trip to Target (done it every Christmas Eve for the past few years, we always need something, though it started with needing nylons for Christmas Eve services, now it is just a tradtion/joke)

Go to dinner with the family, then to church to light all the candles for the midnight candlelight service.

Saturday - Praise Jesus, lounge about and enjoy the family and the cat.

Well, my work xmas party was last night, and today my boyfriend leaves for chicago, and my best friend comes here from West Virginia. I work tonight, we are having "Girls Drunk Night Out" thursday, I work on Friday night, and on Sat I will go to Granbury, TX to spend the day with my mom, lil bro, and grandmother.