Middle America's Worldview

I haven’t blogged for some time due to the holidays. Looking at my blogs of interest, I see most others are the same.

We celebrate each Christmas pretty much the same way. My parents and immediate family comes over to our house Christmas Eve morning. Kelli’s parents and immediate family comes over to our house Christmas Eve afternoon. Christmas Eve night Kelli and I swap our gifts while the kids are in bed waiting on Santa Clause. Christmas day we stay home and the day is pretty much for the kids, asking anyone to come over for lunch.

The morning went as expected. My brother and crazy wife was late as usual. My dad called before coming over to ask if anyone was there, who was going to be there, ect. As if I hadn’t told him 3 times already. It went smoothly without a fight, but the crazy sister in law kept telling Kelli how proud she was by not having to spend any money on my parent’s gifts. Yes, while they sat in the next room. Sigh. I will say they stayed longer than expected. Normally my family is in and out within 1.5 hours. So that was a nice surprise.

That afternoon we actually went to Kelli’s parents rather than them coming to us. It was nice and as usual, I snacked and tried all appetizers, ect. While we were leaving the palms of my hands began to itch like crazy. I asked what it meant when your palms itch. I had always heard it was dependant on which one. One would be your getting money, the other you’re going to lose money. I never could recall which one. One the way home, my stomach boiled and my bottom lip started to become numb.

When we arrived home, it was pretty obvious I was having some kind of allergic reaction. I popped 2 benadryls, (my wife had me too immediately). Probably due to the fact I was getting red all over. Both my lips were now swelling. I itched all over. It wasn’t pretty. Since, I had popped the benadryls; I really didn’t stay up later than I wanted to. We did get a chance to prepare Santa’s arrival with the gifts from Santa and Kelli and I swapped gifts. But that was about it. I crashed. Benadryl and Tylenol P.M. are two things that just kick my butt. By morning I was doing ok. No red rash as before and no swelling. It was weird.

Christmas morning was very nice. This year it wasn’t a free for all. We had our son and daughter open one at a time and actually enjoyed the time in it. It was also nice the fact they said thank you after each one. I wasn’t really looking for that one. Normally it the Tasmania devil times too blitzing through the packages.
The day went nice. Kelli’s immediate family came over for lunch. They ate and basically everyone but the kids and I took a nap. Sure went by fast though.

We hit a couple of stores for the day after Christmas sells the next morning. We came home and played with our new toys. We then went back to town and checked the remaining stores that were now open. Hastings had a sale on their used PS2 games. You buy 2 and the 3rd one is one penny. I grabbed ‘Hitman Contracts’, ‘Max Payne 2’, and ‘Simpsons Road Rage’. I also grabbed a Digimon game for the kids in another store. That was the hit game.

Sunday afternoon I watched the kids play the new Digimon game for nearly 2 hours. I finally had to get in on the action. It was a blast. We all had a really good weekend.

Monday was back to work. No-one was hardly at Corp. so we expected a slow day. I put away as much of the Christmas decorations and tree ornaments as possible throughout the day. I had already removed the outside lights, ect Sunday. I managed to finish most of it by the time Kelli got in from work. I then was able to get everything up in the attic before I took my kiddos to the therapist.

Two things are the absolutes during the Christmas for me. 1) I always manage to break a teapot either putting up or bringing down during decorating. 2) There is always a HMF (heavy mother f**ker) of a Christmas box. No matter if you break the stuff out to 20 boxes to put up, there is one that fills like its lead plated.

The HMF tricked me this time. I had about 12 boxes in total to put up in the attic. Now picture this. I have a 7 foot ladder and a 3x3 hole in the garage ceiling to work with. These boxes are your standard 30 gallon or 60 gallon Tupperware. Of course you have to fill these bad boys up. We purchased a couple more to help the load. I pushed a heavy one up there and thought that was the HMF. But the 3rd to the last was the true HMF. I had already done some amazing things to get these boxes up there without falling back down with a box on top of me. But when I hit this one, man it was tough. I got it half way up the ladder and it came right back down. ‘OK, you’re going up there.’ I made it but it was a job.
I have just come to accept the absolutes. Like the fact there is a creator, the fact you always can find 5 Philips sitting in your tool chest when you’re looking for a standard screwdriver.

Tonight, we have 4 girls and 2 boys at hour house. Our girl is having a sleepover with 4 girls and one of their brother.

Yep, the fun never stops around here.