It's (Mostly) Over

What a ride. I can't believe Christmas has been and gone for another year. It was a great time, full of the usual family fun and strife, madness and mayhem--my sister delivered on being cranky, my dad on being loud, my mom on being excitable, and yet it all worked. I honestly can't believe it came and went so quickly.

And now, having dropped Judy and Lucas off in Alexandria after a final lecture from my dad about how it's an hour of *his* way (sorry, Dad, it's 2-3 hours out of my way, since I don't have to leave the house unless I have to take them home), I'm sitting here in a quiet house, a house I worked so hard to straighten up and is now covered in the tiny post-present detritus of Christmas (think twist ties, little plastic bags, shreds of wrapping paper, pieces of tape, and someone even stuck stickers on my coffee table), and all I want to do is take a nap, and I just might do it.

This may be the first year the Christmas tree comes down early. Our big Epiphany dinner is next weekend and with a tree this big, we don't have room for people to sit and eat. The nativities will stay up till all is said and done, however.

It was a great Christmas. We got lots of great gifts. The General surprised the crap out of me by giving me a Wii for Christmas. It's easily the most simple game system I've ever played, and my God is it so much fun. I need to get some more remotes for it, but we have some new games and it's an absolutely blast.

My mom surprised all of us by getting each of us a mug from the school where we went to college. I was very, very happy she got me a Manhattan College mug instead of a UALR mug, but it was such a great moment when we all pulled out our mugs and said, "Hey! What the heck?!"

My dad got me a talking GPS for use in my regular and business travels and we've been having a blast with that. I was hauling down I95 the other night as we all drove to spend Christmas night at Reagan Airport with my sister, who was working, and it told me to take a sharp left. It would be impossible to take a sharp left off I95 at any portion of it, but the GPS was insistent. Fortunately, that has been its only foible to date.

And finally, despite what you may read on her blog, no one accused my sister of ruining Christmas. I gotta defend the family here. We don't roll like that. :-D It was a wonderful day, a wonderful week, and a few times, I found myself having to take a step back and go upstairs and let my eyes leak a little bit. It has been 9 long years since we were all together for Christmas, and it was so special and wonderful. So even though I'm no longer juggling cars in the driveway, cooking dinner for 7, logging out my husband from his computer, tripping over the dog, annoying my sister, snooping with Joe, playing the Wii with Lucas, or refereeing between my parents, I'm so sad it's over, and I hope it won't be the last time that my family is together for the holiday.

It's hard to come to those decisions and I know already that we'll all be split up again for Easter, but it was nice to have a Christmas we could all spend in love and (at least on my end) in gratitude for our little ragtag band of merry makers.