I hope all who read this (all 2 of you) had a wonderful Christmas. In spite of still being sick, mine was very nice. I ended up calling in sick through Friday. Friday morning D had a few last minute gifts to get so we ventured out. However I remained in the car while he went into the stores. A) I wanted to reserve what little energy I had for celebrating later that evening with his parents and B) I didn�t want to run into anyone I knew from work and have to explain why I wasn�t there. Well, one look at me and it would have been obvious but still.

As you may have already figured out, we went to D�s parents on Christmas Eve. We made it to their church about 4 minutes before Mass started. We had to make our own parking spot in the lot. The place was packed. Mass itself was beautiful. Afterwards we went back to D�s parents, had a bite for dinner and waited for his brother and sister-in-law to arrive with their 2 kids. It was a little awkward, in my opinion, with them being separated. D and I haven�t really talked about it yet (not sure what's to be said about them being separated that hasn't been said already anyway). In fact, we've been rather zombie like since Christmas and haven�t talked about a whole heck of a lot. He�s been fighting getting sick this week and I�m still recuperating (at least I no longer sound like a man � well, most of the time). Plus we�ve been conquering the galaxy and shooting Ewoks with the new Star Wars Battlefront game we�ve been playing almost non-stop since Christmas night. ANYWAY, Christmas morning his parents sang at Mass again. Having not slept well the night before, I tried to get a few more z�s in while D read the paper. We headed to his grandmother�s a little before noon, had a nice lunch there with roughly 1/3 of his family (in case I haven�t mentioned it before, D�s mom is one of 15 children), opened presents, watched a little Christmas TV, some of the guys (D included) played a few hands of Pitch and before we knew it, it was 3 o�clock � our cut-off time to go home. We got home a little before 4:30, settled in, had a bite to eat and then opened our gifts to each other. And opened the cats gifts, too � new scratching posts, shiny mice and shiny crinkle toys.

Here�s a pic of what D got me. Beautiful, isn�t it?

And here�s this year's installment of silly hippo gifts D�s parents get me every year.

I saw a commercial with this in it a few weeks before Christmas and KNEW they were going to get me one. I couldn�t stop laughing when I opened it. The hippo thing started the first year he and I were living together. His parents asked what I wanted for Christmas. With everything still being so new and not yet knowing them too well I said, �A hippopotamus.� It�s been the running gag ever since. And I�m not complaining because it�s a fun gag!

D�s parents also found a bunch of extra nativity figures that they�re not using and gave them to me. His mother was quite frank about not wanting to give them to her daughter-in-law because she never displays the nativity/figures that they�ve already given her. Speaking of her, she �let� D�s brother spend the night at his own house Christmas Eve to be with the kids. If she didn�t I was going to give her what for next time I saw her. Nice to see she has at least a shred of sense in her. Not much more than that, but fortunately the shred was enough this time around.

More to talk about there, but will refrain for the time being.

Our White Christmas came a day late. It started snowing Sunday morning around 7 and didn't stop until about 10:30 Monday morning. It was nuts. Today was the first day the roads were actually in good shape. Don't know what took the crews so long to clean them up. I was nervous taking my new car out on the road but had to do it some time. It handled very well. I mean, I knew it would, it's the exact same car I've had all along.

I'm down. I'm always down after Christmas. If it were up to me, the season itself would never end.

New Year's Eve will be spent playing poker at the home of one of D's volleyball buddies. Should be fun. Not looking forward to the drive home that night, though, because you know that people are driving drunk. Because they're selfish morons.

Okay, time to make dinner. Then time to play more Star Wars.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :-)