My Christmas wish list

    Do you remember waking up really early on Christmas to open gifts?  

    In my family the first one up would yell "It's Christmas! It's Christmas!!!"  And we would (the children) rush though the hall (not looking at the gifts) run up and jump on Mom and Dad's bed, wake them up and beg to go open presents.  After a few seconds of "Wait, don't we need a camera, and it's too early" we would all head to the living room where the biggest gifts stood unwrapped.  The stockings, bulgy and overstuffed, were first Dad always love to put oranges and nuts to make them fatter but they had small gifts like lip gloss, toy cars, yo-yos, and gum (and that one year, toothbrushes).   Then we would fly to the gifts under our real live Christmas pine, and the accumulation of wrapping paper was enough to make one kill the proverbial goose!

My sister and I Christmas eve, the mound of presents wrap around our live tree.  About 3yrs. ago.

    Now there are five of us children so if you count at least three gifts per child, plus two each from Grandma Ruth and Pampo (More if they were here), and one from Grandma and Grandpa (unless we were there), and now that we are a bit older we add four more, one from each sibling.
This is a minimum of fifty presents under the tree, not including our "To Mom and/or Dad" presents.  :)
I love my large family!

    In those in between moments from unwrapping/clean-up to breakfast, Dad reads the Christmas Story from the Bible, and if there is time and snow we would play with our new sleds (always a gift) and come in soaking wet and hungry.

Last year, we built a snow man even bigger then the little one on top of shoulders! 

   When we can, we go to Grandma and Grandpa's house usually after we have our own Christmas.
That, is what we are doing today.  We have moved several (in my opinion) times, and once lived five blocks from Grandma and Grandpa, since we now live 9hrs. away it's harder to figure out when to travel and when to squeeze our own Christmas in.

  The plan: Leave around 9am today (I don't see that happening, "around" is more like it) travel to Grandma's house, unload presents and then we will stay at my Aunt and Uncle's house.

   I can't wait to see everyone (and to end the car ride) my father is one of five children, and I have over 20 first cousins, a few cousin-in-laws (?), and some cousin's kids.  Not sure of the final family count, but it's large.

My Christmas wish list this year???

(note: all big items I've gotten for my Birthday)

1.  iPhone cover for... well my iPhone. :)

This one would be fantabulus!

2.   Scarves. Any kind.

3.  Jewelry.  Any kind. (again)

Owls could hurt either. 

4.  Would be clothing, but I just got some amazing new stuff at Cato so I'm good here. 

5.   Anything involving baking.   :)

Really love baking

6.  Hats!!!  (the uber fancy kind)

I have yet to see this one under my tree.  :) 

And my outrageous wish list might as well go online... just for fun.

Ice skates

Red hair

Gloves (the long kind)

Dresses

College money!!!

More ideas

(huh, I was sure I had a longer list... I guess I'm getting older.)

  Whatever your Christmas plans may be this week/whole month, I pray you remember the real reason for the season amidst all the gifts and family.

iltechirate

Skype is a wonderful modern amenity!I really take advantage of this brilliant service, my grandparents who live in a far far off land, of two states away, get a chance to watch us grow up without compromising their health by traveling.  No this is no excuse not to have Christmas at grandmas this year!

I'm thinking the only way to get this kid to smile was to give him a huge plate of cookies!

 (as if any grandchild could skip out on grandma's gifts of Christmas sweaters and money, and even if your family doesn't celebrate this baby's birthday, I'm sure your grandparents are gift givers.)
Skype is just a way for the little sibling who can't remember grandma's house at all, to feel included.  Or that outfit that you want them to Oooo and Ahhh over.  
My Grandpa has recently bought a new Mac laptop. . .

And skypes my brother for computer help.  They'll talk for hours about screen sharing, chatting,  Pages,  Microsoft Word, and anything else just to delay my brothers math homework.  :)
 On the rare occasion when my brother isn't available, it gets passed on to me.  These last few questions I hadn't the foggiest grasp of a clue, but I was able to find them within 4 min.  (Yes, I'm very proud of myself).  So last night when he skyped me, he held up this dark square asking what it was.
               "This came in the box"  he said,  "what is it?"
Before I had a chance to reply,
               "No, honey that's your eyeglass cleaner!" interjected my grandmother.
               "I'm sure it came in the box! But I don't know what it is."  He countered.
The two went back and forth, until they had me rotfl. (literally) "Guys, I think it might be a wipe for the computer screen."

My mother added "Dad, your eyeglasses aren't that large!"  (think santa clause style, round and small)
Then came the friendly banter of "I knew it was a glass wipe!" "Well I knew it cam in the box!"
And then, right as we are skyping, in the middle of our conversation he takes the fabric square, and wipes the screen!  Oh tears were squirting out my sockets!  (Think of Steve, on Blues Clues wiping a paw print. . . and my babysitting jobs just all came back to me.)

Anyway,  enjoy these next few holiday months, go visit your grandparents!  Comment below if you have another way of spending time with your grandparents, or have a funny story about the technologically impaired.

Browsers and blue puppies,