Home for the Holidays

This year most of MacTroll's family came to our house for Christmas. Since we plan on putting the house up for sale in March and hope to move to California this summer (barring any ugly, national financial issues) it's likely to be the last Christmas in a house that can hold nine extra people.

It was super fun to see the family and for X-man to have kids around. He was so excited about it that he couldn't spend the night in the tent with his cousins. He said it was too hard to shut his brain down, so he spent the night on my yoga mat in his Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag on the floor of our room. We've been getting him to bed by 9:30 every night, with his usual 30-45 minutes of reading stories time, so we're not doing too bad.

Lily, on the other hand, was flabbergasted by all the people. I have nieces and nephews that are quiet steppers. Unlike my family, who are all loud steppers. So, children would arise and come upstairs for breakfast and Lily would freak out. "Where did you come from? Have I met you?" Bark, bark, bark. Then she'd sniff them and they'd pet her and she'd remember and calm down. But five unknown kids and four unknown adults makes things interesting for her. Plus, none of them have dogs, so they totally took her for a lot of walks, which she appreciated.

My father-in-law wrote a book about his many years working for Caterpillar. He asked me to proofread it so I started on the preface this morning after the family all left. It's a memoir, so it reads very easily.

X-man had only one real setback this Christmas, when miracle upon miracle, I was able to find a white Wii U. I ordered it online from Toys R Us. It came, X-man opened a Wii U game first and said, "Wait! We don't have a Wii U." Then he looked at me, ran back to pick up the  heavy box, unwrapped it and started to hug it and repeated "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Great! Awesome! Except when MacTroll took it downstairs, it didn't work. We tried a few things and then he went upstairs to look online. Blinking blue light = Wii U D.O.A.

Lots of disappointment. But my Dad did get X-man a copy of Lego Star Wars Clone Wars III for the Wii. And we just popped that in. And any disappointment seemed to lessen.

I think Nintendo was happy MacTroll waited two days before calling their customer support line, too. We have to send the console back in and they're sending us a new one. But I think the guy on the other end was glad there wasn't a verbally abusive parent with a sobbing kid in the background (or lots of kids.)

Overall, it was a very enjoyable Christmas. I have lots of good books to read and a new fuzzy robe. And I also get to start on doing the paint touch ups on the house and finish up getting ready to sell. It's coming so quickly now.

I'm really kind of excited -- and nervous!