Good afternoon!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas or holiday and are ready to celebrate the New Year.

We had a really fun, but relaxing Christmas Eve and Christmas.

We spent both days with my parents.

Christmas Eve we bought pizza and wings and watched the movie Elf with them and on Christmas Day we went there for a gift exchange and dinner. We watched White Christmas after all the gifts were open.

Every year before we open gifts we read the Christmas story from Luke. Either Dad or Mom or my brother usually reads it but my brother couldn’t be there this year so Little Miss and The Husband volunteered to read. It was very nice to have them read it.

There were a couple of very nice surprise gifts for me, including a new Kindle from my husband. I always joke how he rarely buys me books for Christmas, even though that’s what I want most of the time (he really just wants me to choose what I want on my own so he isn’t being a jerk) so this year he put me in my place and bought me a device where I can read hundreds of books.

It was a total shock.

I like the Kindle Paperwhite I have and it was working okay but earlier in the year I thought the battery wasn’t holding a charge as well. It turns out my case wasn’t closing right and failing to put it into sleep mode.

Regardless, The Husband got it in his head that I needed a new Kindle so he kindly used a portion of his bonus to buy one of the newest generations. He wanted me to have one that I could adjust the warmth setting on so I can use it more at night before bed without it messing with my melatonin. It also features a larger screen.

I certainly appreciated the thought and while I first thought it was a bit clunky compared to my older and lighter paperwhite, after a couple of days of using it (it came on Wednesday), I love it. I even hug it when I close the cover. I know. I’m weird. I also hug books after I smell them. Ahem. I’ve heard of weirder habits by people so I’m not worried about my mental status. At least for that reason.

Another surprise for me was a six-month membership to Ancestry.com so I could finish researching our family.

I already had an entire family tree put together but had to take a break because of expenses. Now I have to start a new account and redo some of my research but I can hopefully draw from my old account and quickly add some of it. After I am done, I will make sure to print it all out and save all the documents I want to save in a place I can find it this time.

Among my favorite gifts was a huge three-pound jar of local honey. The Husband joked it should last me a week and after looking at how much I’ve used already he might be right – though it will probably be at least a month.

Little Miss was surprised with two music boxes from my parents among some other gifts. The Husband was given a clock that used to belong to my paternal grandmother.

I bought my son a sword for Christmas. Yes, a real sword. Okay, not really that real but a little real.

It’s fairly solid and it’s something he has wanted, though he later told me it was a bit of a joke. Joke or not, he now has a sword to go with his helmet.

He also received two hammers from his grandfather and I’m not sure if he knew what to think of them but he did say they would be nice to have for personal projects or for his building and construction class. When he was little he used to hand his superhero figures to me and ask me to put them in my purse but on Monday he asked me to put his hammers in my purse. In the end, they were too heavy to be put in there and had to be carried out to go home in a box.

My dad received a gift from his neighbor of a piece of ash wood that had the pattern from the ash bore in its bark and was carved by his neighbor into the shape of a tree.

We have been using this wood in our woodstove and I thought the patterns in the bark were from the wood laying in the dirt and worms making the patterns.

(Speaking of our woodstove – we haven’t had to use it all week but will have to light it tonight as the temperatures drop back down into the 30s.)

My dad always does a beautiful job at wrapping the presents and this year was no exception.

As an aside, Dad will be 80 this Friday. He still likes to try to trick us at Christmas and wrap our gifts in a way we can’t really tell what it is until we open it. This year he wrapped each of us special gifts (like my Ancestry membership) around a can of sardines. We all guessed that was what it was but weren’t sure if they were real sardines or just the cans.

It turned out they were real sardines but money or notes about items that were ordered for us were wrapped around them. Both Little Miss and the Boy tried the sardines. The Boy liked his since they had a Louisiana hot sauce on them. He was disappointed he left them at their house when we left that evening.

Gifting The Boy underwear became a theme for a few years so one year my dad wrapped his underwear in a box of nails which made The Boy think he was receiving a Lego set.

The day after Christmas we all headed to a festival of lights – or Christmas light display about 45 minutes south of us.

Usually we attend this site the day after Thanksgiving, or at least before Christmas, and there aren’t as many people but this year there was a huge line of cars traveling through the lights with us. The lights are set up on a golf course and each display is very impressive, especially for our small area.

This year they enlarged the display and also added a tribute to the victims of 9-11, which was very impressive to us all.

On the way to the display we picked up two friends of Little Miss’s and they regaled us with Christmas carols as we rode because The Husband still hasn’t figured out how to operate the radio in his new-to-him truck so he didn’t know how to turn to the radio station they tell you to play while going through the display.

I tried to play Michael Buble’s Christmas album for everyone but they weren’t that interested.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing for most of us (The Boy has enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in on his break) and some work for The Husband but luckily not all week.

Today The Husband is taking us somewhere for dinner and shopping. Tomorrow we will either relax at home or my parents for New Year’s Eve while The Boy has a friend over for a sleepover. I hope to make Aunt Dianne’s famous sausage balls for either Sunday or Monday.

How was your Christmas or holidays?

Did you receive any special gifts or just have some special family time?

I’d love to know.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends to discuss what I’ve been reading and watching.