One Tree Erected, No Wood Though

Today was not spent shopping. Ginger did make one trip to a store, but it was to return / exchange a pair of pants. Nothing 'new' was acquired today. We were not up and at the stores at 4 am (I'm curious to hear if anyone was, and whether they'll continue this trend). Nana and Quinn had tried playing outside some this morning, but it was pretty cold. Stark contrast from yesterday and the hydrangeas that started budding yesterday are already wilting in the cold. Quinn actually accompanied Ginger to the store (as did Grammy, Pop Pop, Grandmaw and Nana). From what I heard after they had been at the store for a while Quinn made the comment "How long does it take to get a new pair of pants anyway?"


We did put up the new Christmas tree today. We didn't decorate it. And this was the first time we had put it up, so it was all new to us. And new to the cats too as Cynthia had to come check it out.






Catherine was helping us put the tree up until she discovered the bubble wrap the tree was packaged in. After she found that she was pretty much entranced by that for a while.




It'll feel weird not having a live tree this year, but the live tree presents other problems. Like it dies because I can never remember to keep it watered. And then it sheds it's dead needles everywhere. While we were putting up the tree, the kids had a field day playing in the boxes (this was after Quinn came in from playing outside and Catherine had exhausted the bubble wrap). I'm thinking of just getting them a refrigerator box for Christmas and wrapping that, they would probably play with it as much as they would any other toy we could get, and it would give their imaginations a workout.


We did venture out for lunch. But that was the extent of today's excitement outside. Grammy, Pop Pop, JJ, Grandmaw and Joey headed back to Richmond today after our lunch. It'll be sad not having them around as much anymore. Oh yea, and I beat Super Mario Galaxy today (at least phase one of the game). It was very addictive and I give a huge thumbs up. The only nitpick I had with the game was the automatic camera angles would mess up motion sometimes as the camera would swing underneath and your controls would suddenly reverse. Even so, the game was (is) great.