The 12 blogs of Christmas: #9 - Christmas Round One

We went to the in-laws today for round one of the gift-giving-and-getting frenzy that is Christmas. Compared to years past, my in-laws were quite tame in their gift giving, which is a good thing. Of course, I did the majority of their shopping, so I had some control over the situation. 

The big hits were Madden '09 for the Nintendo DS (Charlie), books 1 & 2 of the Twilight series (Annie) and two Ben 10 guys -- Swampfire and Humongasaur (Robbie). 

Karen & Tom seemed happy with the Dan in Real Life BluRay (I could watch that movie 50 times), their GoGo & Poppo wordles, and the fresh-from-the-German bakery springerle cookies.

Mike & I were surprised by our gift of green stuff which came with the directive to "buy something to add value to your house and stimulate the economy." Mike is trying to convince me of the relative value of a BluRay player, while I am set on helping him understand the benefit of new curtains in the family room. 

Our big family gift will come in February, in the form of four days in sunny (Please, God!) Sanibel, Florida. My father-in-law had wrapped a football with a note that said, "The next time we throw this football, we will all be where the birds are. Where will we be?" 

Now, I'm not sure if that says "Florida" to you, but it didn't for my kids. "The zoo! The pet store? Kentucky? (!)" It took a little hand holding to get to Florida. By that time they were so confused, they sort of acted like, "oh, a trip to Florida," kind of like you would expect them to respond to the revealing of a new scent of laundry detergent. 

As a mother, I was embarrassed that they weren't more expressively appreciative. So I said, "Do you know how we're gonna get to Florida?" 

"We're flying?!" There's the ticket -- and suddenly my in-laws were the heroes they deserve to be.  

Commence with the shrieking and squealing and generally goofy running around-ness. Except for one small, scared sounding whimper, which came from me as I realized that I only have about six weeks to lose 50 pounds. Hmmm...wonder if Bob or Jillian have any free time right now?