A nice Christmas

Having the weekend before Christmas was really nice--more time to really get ready. I rushed and rushed, but I still managed to delude myself into thinking on Saturday night that I had time to clean out the garage. So I did. I bought a big broom last spring, because the roofers for the garage made a terrible mess of tar and dust. I never used it. Eventually, the dust settled in their corners and life went on around the mess. When Adam took down the Christmas decorations, a new pile of dust and debrie was kicked up and all over. I kept tracking it into my car and it was annoying. I saw that the broom had made its way as a toy in the back yard and while the handle was a little bent, it still worked. So I finished decorating the Christmas tree and put the boxes away and put more boxes up on shelves and cleaned up some trash and swept the garage. Wow, that broom was like magic--the garage looks so nice now. When I was so thrilled with the results in the garage, I tackled the back porch. I still have debrie on the side and in the corner, but the main part of the porch is nicely swept and clean. What a wonderful Christmas present to myself. Everytime I drive into the garage, I have a wonderful sense of peace and wellbeing that only comes from everything being in its place.

Christmas Eve, we went to Gloria's house for a gift exchange party. We were a nice little group and although the teenager, Adam exclaimed that it was excrutiating for him, I had a very nice time. I think everyone got something they liked--I got a coffee maker that Adam deemed worthy--he's the coffee drinker, not me. Gloria got the cookie jar that I won at Toastmasters and seemed to really like it.

We had a very quiet Christmas (if you don't count a screaming at the top of her lungs two year old, who threw a temper tantrum during dinner). I made a jenny o turkey--four hours from the freezer to the oven to the table. It was edible--kind of non-descript. We also had Honey baked ham which was super, really good. Adam looked at the table and promptly left. He's a vegetarian and I'm no cook. Ris and Lee and Taj seemed to enjoy the meal (if you can call eating and ignoring a temper throwing two year old, enjoying a dinner). I liked the garage so much that I cleaned the kitchen as I went the whole day on Christmas--that was nice too. I made a chocolate cake and that really was the best part of the meal on Christmas. There's really no way to mess up cake.

Adrienne gave me a photo frame that does a slide show of pictures from the computer and Erika gave me a zip drive thingie that had pictures on it. I don't know how many pictures it holds, but it looks very promising as the best present ever (right up there with a clean garage).