Merry Christmas Hangover

We spent Christmas Eve in our own home, but we invited Jen's parents and two siblings still living at home over. We enjoyed a good dinner, games, and the "opening of one present" tradition. That present is always new pajamas for the kids. The kids were very excited to see the NORAD Santa Tracker on the web so they could watch Santa's progress.


Jen and I both woke up before the kids on Christmas morning and had already eaten a bowl of cereal before any of the kids decided to get out of bed. It was 8am before we opened any presents. I'm glad the kids are at this age -- just old enough to get very excited about the prospect of Santa, but just young enough that they won't wake up at 5am clamoring to get out of bed. We made them stop on the stairs before seeing the tree. They were pretty excited.

This is the third year in a row Jen and I have had a budget (for each other) of $30 or less. Three years ago, we decided to do a $1 gift for each other because we'd recently been to Hawaii and had decided to forgo all gifts to each other that year (birthdays, anniversary, Christmas, etc.). Last year, we spent about $30 on each other and this year we decided to spend only $20. I really enjoy this because we find it a lot more fun to spend more money on our kids and others -- such as my siblings.

We spent the afternoon at my parents' house in Elk Ridge. It took us nearly 2 hours to travel the 63 miles due to a pretty crazy storm that hit the Salt Lake Valley and northern Utah County. My folks, who live a thousand feet higher than we do, didn't get anything and even got rain later in the day. Regardless, it was a nervous drive out of Salt Lake Valley.

My Dad celebrates his 61st birthday today which has always been anti-climatic, as you can imagine. Happy Birthday, Dad!

I am working two days next week, but that's it. It's nice being home from work on a day other than Saturday or Sunday.