Peery Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 has come and gone so I thought I would share with you how our Christmas went.

This Christmas was different for us on a lot of levels.  We did things we normally do, mixed them in with things we have never done in the past and had a great time.

I guess you can’t start any Christmas story off without talking about the tree.  When Christmas 2010 was over, we decided that we were going to get rid of our tree.  Now we had said this in the past but we never did.  I figured the only way that we would get a new tree is if we didn't have one at all.  So last year when Christmas was over, we threw away our tree.  This sounded like a GREAT idea at the time.

So Christmas time rolls around this year and we realize we have no tree.  Now that we are in an apartment, having a big/tall tree just isn’t an option.  But we still needed a tree!  We checked out the Black Friday ads and found a nice, small, cheap tree at Lowes.  We think it did a great job!

Moving on to the Christmas cards.  We always do a family picture card and it became quickly apparent that for some reason we only had one picture taken of the 3 of us in the past year to use on our card.  Being that we needed to get them ordered and mailed we didn't really have time to get a picture taken, so we used one that our friend Katie took of us.  Even though it was not my first choice, Heather thought it summed us up well since it was taken at the Ballpark.  Looking back on it, she was right.

Now the budget this year was a lot tighter than in years past.  The only thing Alexis wanted from Santa was a Barbie Dream House so we saved some money, shopped around and were able to locate one at a good price.  But since I was a tad more than we wanted to spend, we were thankful that was all she really wanted.

We decided that we were going to do photo books for the family.  They were “cost effective” and people always seem to like them.  So we go through all the pictures, find the best ones and make the books.  We confirmed our order and sent it off.  We were pretty excited and couldn’t wait to get them.

When they did come, they came in one small box.  I really was expecting something a tad bigger.  But once we opened the box, we saw why all 9 were in a small box...because they were SMALL!  They were about the size of a business card!!  This was bad!  How could we wrap these up and give them as gifts?  Well, we couldn’t so we went with the not as creative Plan B.  Problem solved.

One of the things that we did different this year was spending the night at my Dad’s and doing Christmas morning with him and my step mom.  Looking back on it, I haven’t woke up on Christmas morning in the same house as my dad in almost 20 years.  It was kind of nice!  

On Christmas Eve, we opened presents with my brother, step-sisters, their husbands and our nephews.  We had a great time!  Thanks to my Dad and Beth, we all have waffle makers and Alexis has a very cool toy box!

However, we had a long night and a early morning.  Santa stayed up until almost 1 putting a Dream House together.  And then Lex woke up at 4 ready to get up.  We fought with her off and on until about 5 when she fell back asleep with her and Heather in one room and me in another.  Not quite the way we drew it up!  But I never really did go back to sleep, so I was not off to a good start!

One Alexis woke up, we were eager for her to see what Santa had left her.  I had placed a video camera inside her Dream House hoping to catch her reaction that would be a YouTube video hit.  Instead this is what we got:

Yep, she had no interest in it what so ever.  It took her almost 5 minutes to wake up and get in the spirit of the day I guess.  But once she did, she loved it and had a blast.

For Heather, I was thankful that I had shopped for her back in July otherwise with our budget I wouldn't have been able to get what I got her.  She loves Michael Young and I have gotten her a couple of his All-Star jerseys.  As you can see, I was able to surprise her this year!

I was pretty easy.  I didn’t want too much, but one thing I did want was Star Wars on Blu-Ray.  So between Heather and my step sister I was able to get it!  Heather also got me a nice pair of tennis shoes and renewed my SiriusXM radio in my car, which I love so that might have been the best gift!

We had breakfast, help clean up and headed back home to get some rest before dinner.  We went back over to Dad’s around 4:30 for a great dinner!  From there we went to Heather’s Grandmothers house and then over to our friends house for “drinks and desserts” at 7.

Now by this time in the day we were all pretty beat, but we thought Lex and Macie would have fun playing together for a bit.  On the way to their house we had agreed that we would leave around 8:30 with a goal of being in our bed by like 9:30.  We had a plan!!  Well, the plan was shot out of the water pretty early on!  We got over there, had a few drinks and some laughs and next thing you know it is 11:30.  Whoops.

Getting Lex to leave her friend Macie at 11:30 after a LONG day with no nap just wasn’t an option so they were nice enough to let her spend the night.

We got home and crashed!!  Looking back on it now that the Christmas is put away and New Years is around the corner, it really was a great couple of days.  We had a lot of fun and Lex loved it.  Everything we did, new and old, was a lot of fun!

As 2011 wraps up and the calendar turns to 2012, Heather, Lex and myself just wanted to take a second and wish all of our friends and family a Happy New Year.  We hope that it is filled with many laughs and successes!

Waiting

Probably one of the worst kept secrets in the world is I do not like to wait.  I am not a huge fan of it.  I don't like to stand in line at amusement parks (or ride the rides, but that is another blog), not a fan of long waits at restaurants, and if the drive through line is too long I will just go in.

DISCLAIMER: I have stood in line for 2 iPhones (below) and loved every minute of it.

I handle waiting better than most, I would like to think.  I don't drive 100mph to go 10 miles.  I don't huff and puff if I do get stuck in a long line.  I don't berate people if dinner takes a little longer than it should to be served.  But I know I should handle waiting better than I do.

But it seems here lately waiting is all I am doing.  Not sure if this is God’s way of testing me or if I am just running through a stretch in life that requires waiting or both.  

As I write this, I am currently waiting on carpet cleaners to call.  In the past few days I have waited for possible interviews, for the State to respond to applications, people to get back with me and I even got stuck in an ungodly line at Starbucks that I couldn't get out of.  

And almost on queue, I read an article this morning from a friend about taking things one step at a time and that a lot of the great things in life do require waiting.  He talked about (and reminded me) that the design for the iPhone OS was actually created on the iPad.  And for those of you that know about these products, the iPhone was released to the public 3 years BEFORE the iPad.  But they waited until the time was right to release the iPad.  Keyword...waited.

Side note: I strongly encourage you to subscribe to his blog

So whatever this is in my life right now, I accept the challenge and will keep waiting because eventually what I am waiting for has to show up...right?