No place like home for the holidays!
Greetings from New Jersey, where the current temperature is 35 degrees and it's raining.
Sigh. It's good to be home.
I stayed up all night on Monday night since I had to be at the airport at 5am. It took a half hour to get through security, which is unheard of at FLL. Until yesterday, the longest I had ever waited was 5 minutes.
Of course I was seated in front of a 3 year old who did not understand the concept of not kicking the seat in front of you, no matter how many times his mommy told him to stop. The inflight movie on the plane was "Fred Claus," and there were no other options because I got stuck on a ghetto plane that didn't have the new entertainment system yet. At least it was clean.
I was, however, treated to a beautiful view of NYC in winter morning sunlight, and everything was good after that. Except for being stuck behind abnormally slow moving people on the freezing cold jetway. That sucked.
Slept for pretty much the rest of the day yesterday, since I had been awake for almost 30 hours straight.
Today started off with The Mystery Of When The Tree Fell Down.
Background: For the past 3 years in a row, the family Christmas tree has fallen over at some point during the holiday season. I think it's the new tree stand that Dad bought, coincidentally, three years ago.
Anyway, the Falling Of The Tree is discovered in one of two ways. Either it falls over when no one is home, meaning that someone comes home to a felled tree, or the tree falls while someone's at home and can hear the crash that it makes.
This year the tree fell over while I was in the next room in full sight of the tree...and I didn't even know it. In my defense, I was drinking coffee and reading today's paper. I'm rather oblivious to anything else going on when I'm doing my coffee and paper thing. My dad insists that he must not have been around when it fell because he would have seen or heard it fall if he was anywhere near it. My sister was upstairs getting showered and dressed. The cat was asleep. Mom was out running errands, not knowing that she would come home to another fallen Christmas tree.
I'm sure that the tree fell slowly and quietly simply because if it had fallen with a crash, I would definitely have heard it, and the cat would have come to investigate.
Once we (dad, sister and I) realized that the tree was down, we then had to clean everything up and set the tree back up again. We had to take the lights completely off, and 75% of the ornaments are down. When my mom got home, the first words out of my mouth were, "I didn't do it."
Can you believe that? To be fair, my sister almost ran and hid when she heard the garage door opening, not wanting to face my mother's potential wrath. Fortunately, Mom was not surprised that the tree had fallen and was totally cool about it.
I think next year we should place bets on when the tree will fall. $25 buy-in, winner wins the $100 pot. Cruel and wrong, yes. Somewhat hilarious and potentially profitable, totally.
Later on my sister and I headed out for some last minute shopping and a look-see at my old stomping grounds, the mall. It felt nice to be back in the neighborhood again despite the dismal weather and drastic tenant changes. After a few more stops, we headed back to the house...
...and that has pretty much been my day.
Oh, we had ribs from Gates Barbeque for dinner, lovingly shipped to us from my grandparents in Kansas City. A-maz-ing. Seriously. If you're ever in Kansas City for some reason, you absolutely must go and get some barbeque from Gates.
Now the presents are all wrapped, the Christmas texts are starting to trickle in, my new pajamas are waiting on the bed, and I'm ready for Christmas to be here!
Merry Christmas to you and yours. May it be filled with peace, love, joy, and hope, all things that we all really need right now!
Sigh. It's good to be home.
I stayed up all night on Monday night since I had to be at the airport at 5am. It took a half hour to get through security, which is unheard of at FLL. Until yesterday, the longest I had ever waited was 5 minutes.
Of course I was seated in front of a 3 year old who did not understand the concept of not kicking the seat in front of you, no matter how many times his mommy told him to stop. The inflight movie on the plane was "Fred Claus," and there were no other options because I got stuck on a ghetto plane that didn't have the new entertainment system yet. At least it was clean.
I was, however, treated to a beautiful view of NYC in winter morning sunlight, and everything was good after that. Except for being stuck behind abnormally slow moving people on the freezing cold jetway. That sucked.
Slept for pretty much the rest of the day yesterday, since I had been awake for almost 30 hours straight.
Today started off with The Mystery Of When The Tree Fell Down.
Background: For the past 3 years in a row, the family Christmas tree has fallen over at some point during the holiday season. I think it's the new tree stand that Dad bought, coincidentally, three years ago.
Anyway, the Falling Of The Tree is discovered in one of two ways. Either it falls over when no one is home, meaning that someone comes home to a felled tree, or the tree falls while someone's at home and can hear the crash that it makes.
This year the tree fell over while I was in the next room in full sight of the tree...and I didn't even know it. In my defense, I was drinking coffee and reading today's paper. I'm rather oblivious to anything else going on when I'm doing my coffee and paper thing. My dad insists that he must not have been around when it fell because he would have seen or heard it fall if he was anywhere near it. My sister was upstairs getting showered and dressed. The cat was asleep. Mom was out running errands, not knowing that she would come home to another fallen Christmas tree.
I'm sure that the tree fell slowly and quietly simply because if it had fallen with a crash, I would definitely have heard it, and the cat would have come to investigate.
Once we (dad, sister and I) realized that the tree was down, we then had to clean everything up and set the tree back up again. We had to take the lights completely off, and 75% of the ornaments are down. When my mom got home, the first words out of my mouth were, "I didn't do it."
Can you believe that? To be fair, my sister almost ran and hid when she heard the garage door opening, not wanting to face my mother's potential wrath. Fortunately, Mom was not surprised that the tree had fallen and was totally cool about it.
I think next year we should place bets on when the tree will fall. $25 buy-in, winner wins the $100 pot. Cruel and wrong, yes. Somewhat hilarious and potentially profitable, totally.
Later on my sister and I headed out for some last minute shopping and a look-see at my old stomping grounds, the mall. It felt nice to be back in the neighborhood again despite the dismal weather and drastic tenant changes. After a few more stops, we headed back to the house...
...and that has pretty much been my day.
Oh, we had ribs from Gates Barbeque for dinner, lovingly shipped to us from my grandparents in Kansas City. A-maz-ing. Seriously. If you're ever in Kansas City for some reason, you absolutely must go and get some barbeque from Gates.
Now the presents are all wrapped, the Christmas texts are starting to trickle in, my new pajamas are waiting on the bed, and I'm ready for Christmas to be here!
Merry Christmas to you and yours. May it be filled with peace, love, joy, and hope, all things that we all really need right now!
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