Christmas Time Is Here

Christmas morning started way too early for my tastes. The kids were up and going before 6:30. The sun wasn't even up yet, I still don't know why they woke up, other than I suspect Quinn had to use the bathroom maybe and then that was the end of that. Then it was a matter of getting all the adults up and going.






The kids did their usual whirlwind of destruction method of present unwrapping. A couple of gifts managed to distract them from the thought of opening more presents however briefly. This year we evidently decided we needed to singlehandedly keep Playmobil in business. Quinn got a Playmobil train set, Catherine got a Playmobil hospital and my Mom gave the both the Playmobil castle. These were the big ticket Playmobil items. They both got several smaller items also.


Once the kids realized that we weren't going to be opening all the Playmobil immediately and spreading the hundreds of tiny pieces all across the room they got back to the business of tearing through other presents until they got to the stomp rockets.




Much to my surprise this small $12 present captured their attention enough that we had to immediately go outside and try them out for a bit. It was a tad cold out though, so I didn't let the kids stay out for more than 10 minutes before hustling them back inside.


My Mom got some pictures of the kids (some I took and some professional ones also) and a copy of volume one (of one so far) of my blog book. When they hear that I got a 100% increase in sales during December I suspect I'll soon be on the New York Times bestseller list.


I'm pretty sure other people got some decent presents, but I got completely distracted putting together a puzzle ball I was given, so I didn't notice a lot of what the other presents were.


Both kids got a Nintendo DS and three games from their grandparents (that would be three games apiece, not three to share). Catherine's DS is pink (of course) and Quinn's is red. I'm not sure the DS was Catherine's favorite present of the day, but it was definitely the one that held her interest more than any other. From then on every time I saw Catherine she had her head buried over the DS using the stylus to play some game. Now the kids normally don't get to play video games, but Ginger apparently made an exception for today since it was Christmas.


My uncle Frank, aunt Mary and my cousins Will and Jo Beth showed up just before lunch.


After lunch we introduced my uncle to the Wii where much to Will's chagrin he beat the snot out of Will at the boxing game. I will say I suspect Will's controller was once again defective since he bequeathed it to me and I was also soundly beat by Frank (that's our excuse and we're sticking to it). I did managed to get a knock down in and lasted until round two, but the end result was eventually Mii on the ground.


At some point when we were downstairs playing the Wii all Ginger's family decided that since they had been up so early they were going to go nap. So they missed out on another round of present opening. We were trying to get done quickly so they could leave because Jo Beth has work tomorrow and wanted to get back home at a decent hour. After another yearly rousing round of what crazy thing will Frank buy this year it was time for them to go. We tried doing a big group photo before they left, but we only took a couple shots and neither turned out particularly well.




Too bad their car wouldn't start though. So next thing we know they're all back inside and sitting around waiting on the locksmith AAA was going to send over to try and get the car started. If you think a locksmith showing up on Christmas would take a while, you would be right. So during that time we played some more Wii. This time was had Mary play, who managed to get a higher Wii training age than any age I had previously seen (she scored an 79). Although once she played regular bowling she did okay (not good enough to beat Quinn who stopped by and offhandedly bowled a 201 to beat everyone there). Eventually the locksmith did show up, but wasn't able to fix the problem and claims the problem is the ignition has gone bad. So I let them borrow my car for the drive home and now their car is sitting dead outside our house (I think I got the lousy end of this Christmas gift).