Happy Christmas

This Christmas is unlike any other Christmas for us. Normally we would wake up tomorrow morning, fix up a cup of coffee and lazily open presents before our Big Christmas Breakfast. Normally we laze around a bit before driving to Orangeburg to spend the day with Dad's folks. But instead we had a semi-mini-Christmas tonight. We opened most of our presents before dinner so that Chris could be here for our first "almost family" Christmas together. Tomorrow we will wake up and spend the morning in a frantic frenzy, packing and planning and no doubt arguing about proper "Winter in Florida" attire. All of this fuss because... tomorrow were driving to Miami for Ellen and Chris' wedding.

It all takes place on Friday and we're leaving tomorrow because we unanimously concluded that driving Bellie to Miami the day before her wedding would result in a sleepy and therefore horrendously cantankerous bride. 

I ain't puttin' up with no Bridezilla! 

And so we gathered earlier this evening and pretended it was Christmas morning.

Some highlights included Ellen's bad wrapping jobs, Dad's new Nerd Light, and a new walking harness Ellen bought for Buddy that we all, upon watching her pull it out of the bag, thought was a giant black thong. She didn't tell us what it was at first. She just said "I got this for Buddy." and then pulled it out. The room fell silent until finally someone screeched "You bought Buddy a thong??" Look at it. Even in the blurry picture it looks all wrong.

After presents, dinner, and few rounds of Pig, Chris headed home to get some sleep. He's headed to Florida really early in the morning to get some family time in before the Big Day. The rest of us watched The Grinch while the Stagnant Slapper looked for ways to entertain himself. He wrestled Buddy, ate some raisins, and then came and sat on the floor in front of us, taunting us with air-jabs, slaps, and karate chops.

They've all gone to bed now. I can't sleep. It's 3:37am. When I was little it was the excitement that kept me up. Right now I think its the giant bag of gummy watermelons I hate haphazardly while reading this really great book that I can't put down. I've read two-hundred and thirty pages just today. I brag about this only because it's very much not like me. Unknowingly consuming an entire bag of rubber candy however, well that's got Laura written all over it. 

This is all off topic. 

A Happy Christmas to all you folks. I sure hope it's doozie.