Whew ......

Why is it we look forward to the holidays with such anticipation only to be left feeling like a tornado ran us over afterwards? Driving to everyone's house, multiple Christmas parties, shopping, more shopping, family, cooking and eating and everything else ultimately wears you down (at least me). Thankfully, I am off this week to recover!!!!

The Lee family had a great Christmas this year. Thanks to everyone that helped us to have such a wonderful holiday.

Here is a little timeline of the fun ...

6:00 AM Christmas Eve morning - The girls woke us up to open their presents. All of the girls were going to their "other" homes for Christmas day, so this was our Christmas day. Why they felt the need to get us up that early I will never understand (they are teenagers, shouldnt they sleep late?). As usual, Santa Claus was too kind and the girls really enjoyed it.

9:00 AM Christmas Eve morning - Start breakfast for my family. We cooked a "little" breakfast; three packs of bacon, twelve eggs (we actually used eighteen but six landed on the floor), a pound of sausage, another pound of sausage, and baked a sausage roll thing, twenty biscuits, and more. After our "little" breakfast, we played the Wii and spent time as a family.

10:00 AM Christmas Eve morning - Rusty was outside running the nephews around. Rusty was so happy to have someone new to chase, through balls, etc.

2:47 PM Christmas Eve afternoon - Elizabeth finally sat down for a couple of minutes before she cracked the whip on all of us to get ready. The girls and I were playing the Wii before she cracked down on us.

4:00 PM Christmas Eve afternoon - Elizabeth's family started to arrive for the big Christmas Eve family party. Each year we all gather on Christmas Eve for a family Christmas. As usual, their was an insane amount of food in the house, and one or two adult beverages to be shared.

6:00 PM Christmas Eve evening - I don't know how she managed this, but Elizabeth actually timed / orchestrated / whatever getting all of the food cooked, shredded (great BBQ), baked, plated, etc (Big thanks go out to Danita and Kim) at about the same time that the final groups arrived. It was party time!!! For Christmas Eve, we draw names for all the "kids, and the adults play dirty Santa. As you can imagine, there was great fun and fellowship had by all.

8:00 PM Christmas Eve evening - Rusty was wore out. My boy crawled up under a chair and table to rest. He snored through most of the gift swapping, etc. He did manage to wake up in time for a family picture. Funny enough, he joined the picture on his own and laid down in front of everyone and looked at the camera. I cant wait to see that picture.

10:00 PM Christmas Eve evening - The kitchen was clean. The furniture was returned to its rightful place. The Wii was turned off, and Rusty was worn out! Jessica and Brooke caught a ride to their "other" house.

10:15 PM Christmas Eve evening - Big E and I took Lil Bit back to her "other" house.

10:45 PM Christmas Eve evening - We arrived at home and sat in our favorite TV spots for a few minutes of rest. Rusty was so tired that he left us and went to Lil Bit's room to sleep.

11:00 PM Christmas Eve evening - Tired, we made our way to bed.

6:00 AM Christmas Day morning - You don't really think that we got up that early do you? Remember, our girls were at other houses, we are childless. Actually, Rusty finally saw fit to come join us in bed. Yogi was already sleeping on my hip, so he took his usual place at Big E's feet.

8:30 AM Christmas Day morning - I managed to sneak out of bed. I had a little work to do. I managed to fill Big E's stocking, and was getting another gift setup when I heard her calling. Apparently, I was not as sneaky as I thought.

9:00 AM Christmas Day morning - We made a little (really, just a little) breakfast for ourselves and exchanged our gifts.

10:00 AM Christmas Day morning - Back on the Wii!!! Man, that thing is addictive.

11:00 AM Christmas Day morning - We packed up the gifts and headed to Mom and Dads house. We had a great afternoon of food and fun. My grandmother (Nana) spent a couple of hours with us. We had an awesome lunch and exchanged gifts. I got the coolest gift ever and I will devote a special blog to it soon.

3:00 PM Christmas Day afternoon - We met Big E's family at Shoneys for a little conversation (Ok, there was a lot of food there too, but we didn't eat any).

4:00 PM Christmas Day afternoon - We arrived back at home to play .... the Wii till 11:00 PM. We would have played longer, but Big E has to work this week!

Wwwwhhhheeeewww ... A two day whirlwind of fun, food and family.

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas. We definitely did and look forward to doing it all over again next year.

Love

The Lees