The recovery phase

As much as I've been dreading Christmas this year, I have to say, it was actually quite nice.

I left work at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, and spent a couple of hours doing some last-minute running around. Apparently, so did everyone else in town, because the stores were PACKED.

Anna Marie and I spent Wednesday afternoon putting together our gingerbread house, and I was elbow-deep in icing and gumdrops when Amanda sent me a text message saying she was about to leave to come get us.

(Whoops! I had forgotten that we were going to her church's Christmas Eve service. We had to leave at 5 p.m., and it was 4:45, and neither Anna Marie nor I was presentable. I still had icing on my arm when I got to the church bathroom to freshen my lipstick.)

Jason stayed home, which turned out to be a good thing - the church is an hour from here, and we didn't leave there until 7:30, so he had dinner waiting on us when we got home. Dad and Jeremy were here too, and they were watching - what else? - A Christmas Story.

We had such a good, Christ-centered Christmas Eve. After we opened our presents (and Anna Marie had her screaming fit at the sight of the Nintendo DS box) we finished our Advent candles. I'm actually starting to miss it already!

Yesterday morning we stayed at home until lunchtime, when we went to mom's and had smoked turkey. We watched Patch Adams, which I've never seen, if you can believe it.

And then last night - the grand finale - we went to my cousin's house. Our extended family hasn't gotten together in years, mostly because we can't get along well enough to be in the same house for any length of time. I don't know what was different about last night, but as far as I could tell, everyone had a good time. I think part of the solution was that it was a really big house, so pockets of folks could gather and talk. At my grandparents house growing up, we were all shoved together, and, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt.

(Or maybe the troublemakers didn't show up this year. Whatever.)

And now - well, I'm needing a major detox! I did nothing but eat yesterday, most of it stuff I had no business eating. My cousin who lives in California sent my mom a box of See's Candies, and oh my goodness - I told my mom that those were fancy chocolates, and I was not disappointed! Mom, Amanda, and I sat on the couch watching movies, cutting the chocolates in half to see what was inside, and almost making ourselves sick!

(In fact, I told Amanda that this was going to be remembered as the year we sat on the couch, cut mom's fancy chocolates open, watched movies, and just about made ourselves sick.)

I was fortunate enough to leave work at 2 p.m. today, and, miraculously, the house had recovered from the Christmas melee! Unbelievable!

Anna Marie has barely put that Nintendo down, but we have a slight problem. One of the games is playing some music that I find entirely inappropriate for a seven-year-old. We've promised to take her to a used game store so she can trade it in towards something better - something that doesn't ask the question Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

(And it was rated "E" for everyone, or so the box would lead me to believe.)

I'm so glad I have another two weeks before Weight Watchers meets again, because I'm going to need it to recover from the feasting we did yesterday. I'm surprised I could zip my pants this morning.

I hope everyone out in Blogland had a good, blessed Christmas too - and that you could get your pants zipped today as well.