Early Christmas

We do the "every other year" Christmas in our family. With Steve's family mostly in Pittsburgh and my family is mostly here in Maine, we have to alternate our Christmases each year to accomodate everyone. People often say to us, "wow, that must be really hard." No, it's actually not. I did that when I was a little girl because my dad's family were all in Buffalo, NY, so every other year we made the 12 hour trek to be there for Christmas Eve. There is a small part of us that would love if all the family could be together for Christmas, but we've discovered that our way is actually better. When we go to Pittsburgh for Christmas, we are solely focused on the Henderson side of the family, and when we are in Maine, we can be fully present at our home with my side of the family. We don't have to split our day traveling from one family to another, eating several meals and lugging presents around. It's actually much more relaxed. Besides, Christmas is actually when family can all be together, so in our family we usually have 2 Christmases. This year we had an "early" Christmas because we exchanged gifts with Yaya and Papa before we left on our trip. Preston received some new clothes and his own pair of binoculars. Wesley also got new clothes, including a cozy fleece robe, and his own digital camera (my budding photographer has already snapped a ton of pictures.) Steve also received some new clothes (clothes is pretty much a given when you have a mom who works at L.L. Bean), a gift card to Home Depot, and a very impressive gift from my dad, the Patriots fan. I, too, received some great clothes from L.L. Bean and a new laptop computer









(combo Christmas & birthday gift) which is what I'm typing on right now. Oh, and by the way, I'm sitting at my kitchen table. That's right. I'm posting this through our brand new wireless DSL connection - it's about darn time, right? Steve and I also received our gift from Wesley that he made at school - a beautiful homemade candle. The gift exchange went pretty quickly and then the boys got to spend the afternoon with Yaya and Papa, who stayed the night with us. That was a great gift to me, as I still had a lot of packing and last minute things to take care of, and Steve was working at the restaurant tonight. Which reminds me - I should probably quit typing and get back to it. This DSL is so awesome!