whew.

We made it. It's not just Hannukah that lasts 8 days, I'm certain it's Christmas too. Maybe Mary had a r-e-a-l-l-y long labor, or the wise men had some trouble following the star... whatever the reason, it's over... finally...and we're all four alive. We have just arrived home from our 6th Christmas celebration... Don't get me wrong, it was great fun-filled family time complete with all the trimmings: driving an estimated 500+ miles, a visit to santa (who was rather grumpy for a chubby man that only has to work 25 days out of the year), last minute gift card purchasing, wrapping paper overload, spending $325 on boarding 2 dogs for 5 days, two dancing elmos, a call to 911, two snowstorms, a shattered ornament, cramming 20 adults and 5 children in our modest suburban home, eating many-a-mystery-casserole, two vikings games (that's nearly 10 hours of football!... have I mentioned I don't like football?!), two birthday cakes for Jesus and one for Ryan, a power outage, setting the grill on fire (the outside of it), a forgotten ID at the liquor store at 9:59 on a saturday (remember we live in MN, no booze on sundays), a plethora of items made in china (hopefully sans the lead), dogs attacking a turkey carcass, hundreds of twist-ties that spent their short lives anchoring trucks and barbies to their expensive packages only to be lodged in the gut of my Dyson, a bonfire that easily exceeded our city's 3'x3' limit that, which by-the-way, was lit using tiki torch oil (and I thought Ryan was a boyscout), and last but certainly not least; having to reach my bare hand into a public toilet to retrieve a 20¢ sparkle headband... yes, a public toilet... there you have it folks, another Griswald family Christmas. Until next time....