Christmas is Over

Well, Christmas is over. The wrapping paper flying, and the kid's adrenaline, is over. My kids are acting a little different this year. My son had the flu on Christmas day. He threw up all day! How terrible is that? 9 years old and you have the flu on your favorite day of the year. He didn't get to play with any of his new stuff yesterday. He is busy today trying to make up for lost time. My daughter, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to do with herself yesterday. She didn't have to defend her toys from her brother or aggravate him when he was playing with his. She did play with her new stuff all day yesterday but didn't stay occupied with one thing for too long. As far as Christmas dinner, we didn't have it. My wife didn't feel 100%, and as I said, my son was "sickly".

Christmas Eve was a pretty good time. We were in Iowa to celebrate Christmas with my wife's family. Her uncle always has a Christmas Eve party and pretty much everyone made it back this year. It is always nice to see everyone and revisit the last year. We played Euchre and enjoyed some good conversation. We got back home around midnight and put the kids to bed so Santa could make the stop at our house.

We get to celebrate Christmas with my parents and brother this coming weekend. It should be fun, if everyone is healthy. I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Enjoy the new year and stay safe and healthy!

Holidays

I love holidays...most of the time. At Christmas I love the excitement in my kids, and myself. I love the food, the conversations, and the time to get reacquainted with family and friends. I enjoy having the time to do things with my kids, like see a movie, go to the mall, have a snowball fight, go sledding, etc. I have always loved Christmas but I guess I am growing up because the same things that excited me even ten years ago don't even get a second thought from me now. Instead of me worrying about how much fun I am going to have over Christmas break I find myself worrying about how much the rest of my family is going to enjoy the holidays. I guess that is part of being a dad.

Of course with the good comes the bad. I find myself a little more stressed around the holidays. The house has to be clean for company. We have to move people around to get the proper sleeping arrangements. We have to attend all the Christmas programs and festivities. We have to feed family, usually with some extravagant meal, and disrupt our daily routines so that we can get together with our extended family and make sure they are taken care of. Sometimes we have to travel long distances to family's homes with large amounts of Christmas gifts and extra luggage. Loading and unloading...that's fun! I guess what I am saying is that I am getting old and set in my ways. My wife and I love to be home and spend time with our kids, living our own routine. I still love holiday time but have realized that there is a lot of work to enjoying the holidays. I guess in the end all the work is worth it, although sometimes we seem to be so busy that we don't have time stop and enjoy what the holidays are about.

Sincerely,
Ebeneezer Scrooge... :)

In Between Holidays

Thanksgiving is over and I am glad to be back writing. I had a good Thanksgiving over at my parents house and I didn't over eat...amazing! My wife and I braved "Black Friday" and I have to say that it was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Of course, we did not do the the whole 5 a.m. psycho shopping, but we still went. We went to Walmart in Pekin, IL and Best Buy and a mall in Peoria, IL. We got most of our Christmas shopping done! We were at my parents Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday. It was nice to get home on Saturday. Today was a lazy Sunday and I didn't get much accomplished, but isn't that what Sunday's are for? Good news and bad news from the sports front: The Packers won-BAD, The Chiefs lost- WORSE, LSU was upset-GREAT GAME!, Missouri crushed Kansas-BAD, my Fightin' Irish football season is over- GOOD, my Dukies are 6-0-GREAT!

Christmas is now in the air and I am getting primed for the Christmas season. Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year and enjoy pretty much everything about it. Seeing the kid's eyes light up on Christmas morning is just too exciting to explain. I hope it snows on Christmas, or around Christmas. It seems to make the season a little more magical. My belief in snowfall is that it can snow as much as it wants up until Christmas and then I don't want it to snow anymore after that. It doesn't happen that way but that is the way I would like it.

Due to some health issues I will be missing some time at school. I will also be attending a workshop on Tuesday. It is on podcast training. It should be a great tool to teach with. I just wanted to let you know in case I don't stay up to date on my blog. I will try though!

Fred Claus

It's been awhile! Our system was down at work so I was having a hard time keeping up on my writing. We're back so my first topic is "Fred Claus". My son and I went to see "Fred Claus" last night and we thought it was wonderful. It was funny, as expected, but also had a wonderful story to it. I see that the overall ratings of this movie were put at 3 stars out of 5 but I would disagree. I would give it a 4 or 4 1/2. I read one review that said that the movie makes it seem that Christmas is all about presents. Obviously this person was not paying attention to the movie in relation to what the situations in the movie did to the family. It had little to do with the actual presents that were delivered. I would recommend this movie to anyone! This is an excellent Holiday story and really gets you in the mood for Christmas.