MARRY CHRISTMAS!

Urgg... the words are not coming out right...

Brother, I wish you were here. It's really not quite the same without you around.
I am resisting the temptation to be mad at you. :)

HAHA!!!!!!! I'm just overhearing my little girl giving her Uncle a lecture about smoking! Right on!

The other day I told someone that I did not like Christmas. After having just gone through the whole Christmas morning routine I'm realizing that that is not entirely true. I think my dislike for Christmas directly coincided with the time I moved out of my Mama's house.

For the first year it was just Conrad and myself. Of course we visited with the family etc. but there was no little ones around. And although I don't remember much of it because I'm getting along in the years here and my memory is not quite as sharp as it once was.... oh wait, I forgot (case in point), my memory never was all that sharp to being with... anyways... back to the original topic.

First Christmas, Conrad and me... no kids. I figure it HAD to have been pretty darn dull.... orrr... maybe not. Now that I think about it I do remember being excited with all them first "first" together. You know, your first Christmas tree together.. and then there was..... the Christmas tree.. OK so that's the only thing I can think of right now but I'm sure there was more. :)

I know a lot of people have a difficult time with this Christmas season. They find themselves alone, they miss their loved ones, they are reminded of the bleak financial state they are in etc etc. I can understand and even sympathize with all that but I felt RIPPED OFF! Honestly there isn't any two better words to have described how I felt at the time. That's an odd thing to feel don't you think? Like as if somebody owed me something and never followed through. What is up with that?

So ever Christmas the anticipation would build, the day would come and go and the disappointment faithfully followed. I remember saying one year to Conrad, "This is it? This is what all the weeks of planning and preparing was for and it's over just like that?"

I think what they would refer to as "The magic of Christmas" had left me.

I think I grew up.

And now I think that having five kids crowd your bed first thing in the morning as they excitedly dump the contents of their stockings is pretty darn cool... maybe even cooler then what I had back in the day.

Originally I was going to tell my oldest that this was her last year getting a stocking. After all, she's sixteen, has her own cash flow and if she wants/needs something she goes and gets it. But I think I'm changing my mind. I think she'll get one till the day she moves out... or maybe till the day she has her own kids and can watch them open theirs.

I was just bugging my peanut because she disappeared into her room with a new book and hadn't peaked out her head since and here I am being every bit as anti social myself... gotta go.