Christmas Schlep

Hope everyone had a good holiday.  Overall ours was good.  Tiring, but good.

On Christmas Eve, BooBoo woke up with with a fever.  He hadn't been feeling well the night before, so we decided to take him to the doctor.  Luckily our family doctor was open until noon.  One double ear infection later, we picked up some antibiotics at Walgreens and headed home.  I took the day as a sick day, so I took the quiet of him sleeping to  clean the house and wrap some presents.  He was fine by the next morning.

Christmas morning started with a round trip drive across Louisville to pick up Girlie Bear and Little Bear.  She had spent the first half of Christmas break with her mom, and he wanted to come spend Christmas with us.  We went over to Indiana to see family in the afternoon, and then went back to Louisville to spend the evening with friends.  That evening I took Little Bear home, but he says he wants to come over more often.

Overall, everyone got what they wanted for Christmas.  The kids all got a bit of stuff, but not an over-the-top amount.  The older kids got mostly clothes and books.  BooBoo got a few toys, but mostly ones without speakers.  We were dreading a repeat of his birthday where all of the gifts made noise, lots of noise.  My gift to Irish Woman was to pay off her car early, and her gift to me was a box of .45 ACP in my stocking.  Got to love a woman who gives ammo for Christmas.  The kids got her a nice watch, and I got an Amazon gift card.  How did they know I had enough junk?

Our gifts to other families this year were baskets of fresh fruit and homemade cookies.  I made snickerdoodles, sandbakkel, banana spice cake, pumpkin bars, and cranberry bread.  Irish woman made chocolate chip, 7 layer cookies, and some confections that were made up of preserves and white chocolate.  Yum.

Saturday morning we went over to the home of a family that have adopted Girlie Bear and Little Bear as grandkids.  They knew their mom when she was growing up, and have filled in as the sane grandparents for those two.  They've become close, and treat Junior Bear and BooBoo just as well as they do the other two kids.  It was a nice brunch, and after eating and having coffee, we opened a few more presents.  Since Little Bear lives a block away, I had called and asked him to come over.  To my astonishment and mortal emberrassment, his mother came as well.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like the ex-wife coming over for a family gathering that includes the current wife.  Irish Woman took it all in stride, but drew the line when the ex wanted to take family pictures that included BooBoo.  Bad joo-joo there.  On the way home from that, I stopped off and bought her a nice bunch of flowers.  It's the "I'm sorry my ex showed up at the party and made you feel uncomfortable" bouquet.

Last night was the big Hoosier shindig.  About 10 families all got together for a potluck dinner and games.  Hoosier Mom and Dad are the patriarchs of this clan, and they really enjoy seeing everyone there.  All of the sons and daughters came, even the ones that had to drive through a blizzard to get home.  Hoosier Mom made sure that all 16 of her grandkids got together for a picture.  The kids all had a ball running around with their cousins, and it was nice to catch up with Irish Woman's brothers and sisters.  We had to leave a bit early because BooBoo had had a very long day and was making sure we all knew about it at about 8:30. The roads were like hockey rinks in Indiana as we made our way home, but once we got on the interstate it wasn't as bad.  I'm glad it was only a light rain/snow mix.  Much more and we would have been spending the night in Hoosier-ville.

So, we put a lot of miles on the cars this weekend, but got to see all of family.  We have a few more things to do to tie things up, but I've survived another Christmas.

Hope all of you had a good holiday, and everyone got home safe.