mERry christmas

Merry Christmas, all! I hope that all seven of you that reads this blog had a good Christmas. Personally, I have decided this year that I am finally over getting too much stuff. Sure I enjoyed getting a new game to play with on my Wii (no Wii jokes today, but I foresee a Wii-ful 2007), or a good book to read (both of which I got. Thanks everyone). But I also noticed I get a lot of "stuff" that I just don't need nor particularly want cluttering my house. Probably due to the fact that my house is now smaller with new tenants squeezing in, but I am so not about random boxes of winter peppermints or cute little penguins in santa hats singing Jingle Bell all over my house. Thoughtfulness is still the most important thing to me. A little something that you actually set aside 2 minutes to think about what I would like is all I need. That even applies to gift cards. I used to think that gift cards were the height of apathy in gift giving. Today, however, I think it would be great if someone knows that I would occasionally enjoy a Coldbuster from Jamba Juice or would like to download the latest Norah Jones cd from iTunes. Now if you give me a Petsmart gift card, then please, allow me to share some snowmen marshmallow chews with you....

Incidentally, I am happy to report that Santa does indeed know where you are in case you were not home with those sugar plums dancing in head (or pink elephants, depending on how much "help" you need to get through being with your family). Britt started having some lower abdominal pains while we were at her cousin's house on Christmas Eve. She tried to tough it out but it got worse while we were back at our house for a gift exchange with just her immediate family. So we rushed through some of the present openings (no problem for my kids) and were off to the emergency room at Kaiser at around 10pm Christmas Eve. In keeping with the industry average, after an IV with some morphine, a pelvic exam, a CT scan with a delicious barium beverage, and a lot of waiting, we were out of there in six hours. There is nothing like driving around at 4am Christmas morning. A peace that is hard to find at any other time of year...especially on 23rd St. in Richmond...So that was Christmas...well, after a few hours of sleep, we retrieved the kids from my parents and the orgy of presents continued. Britt is slowly recovering. They believed it was a cyst that had ruptured. She sends her greeting...


(She will probably be none too pleased if she knows that I posted that picture....but since it's technically a festive occasion, I might use it as our Christmas card next year....)