I received some Christmas money from my mom and dad so I got the thing I always want most. I spent it on a gift card at my favorite online retailer for myself. I just love perusing their online catalog of items, specifically books and movies. And books and movies is exactly what I got for myself. I also got some items for each of my family members, too. I got books for a few of them and movies for a couple more and I also got a bumper sticker for my oldest son who is impossible to shop for seeing as how he is sixteen. Anytime I shop at this retailer I always make sure I get enough stuff to take advantage of their free shipping. That option may not have as quite of a fast turnaround as if I chose the regular shipping, but their order fulfillment is still very reasonable. Now that I have placed the order, I am chomping at the bit to get the package, though. I just love receiving packages in the mail. It doesn’t matter that I ordered them myself, for some strange reason I just like receiving them. I can’t believe I got more new books because that’s just what I really need: more books. Oh well, I can’t wait to start reading them anyway.

Christmas Day here around my house is a pretty laid back affair these days. When I was a kid, we were always busy on Christmas Day. We would get up and open our presents (when we were young enough to still believe in Santa Clause), get ready and then head out to my mom’s family’s gathering. Now we don’t have a family gathering that takes place on Christmas Day anymore, so we get to relax that day. I will admit, sometimes I miss having anything going on that day, but I have found that I really like the relaxed atmosphere and non-rushing, non-frustrating day. Our plans for this year are to make the kids wait to get up until 9am like usual, open Santa gifts, let me take lots of digital photos of the kids, eat our breakfast of cinnamon rolls or doughnuts (whichever is the preference because we have both) and oj, then spend the rest of the day relaxing, perusing some online catalogs to see if they want to spend any Christmas money they received that way, watching movies, playing any new Wii games, and snacking on other non-healthy food all day, and watching the kids make customized single pieces of Christmas art. What can I say, we enjoy it.