Well… it’s Christmas Day.  The tradition for our family is to open gifts on Christmas Eve.  We’ve usually made trip to several houses as the family grew.  I suggested this year that we limit the tradition of going to each house; and instead let people give gifts to people during Christmas day when we all gather here to eat Christmas dinner.  I expected to hear vehement disagreement, but it was actually received better than I expected.  The middle ground was to combine gifts from the multiple houses and visit at only two houses:  Mom’s and oldest brother’s.  It was much easier than the last couple of years. With oldest sister sick at home with the flu, we still had about 25 people gathered.

With all of the work lately and the lack of time, I finally got the tree decorated yesterday and started on some last minute wrapping.  With that finished, I made myself presentable and discovered I needed to make a trip for some last minute stocking stuffers.  With things being so hurried, I didn’t get to leave before 6 o’clock, which made for a dearth of open stores.  K-Mart became the saving place (in the sense of “savior”) because they stayed open until 9.  So, that’s where youngest sister and I hunted for a few last minute things, including — I discovered — said sister’s gift for me in the game section.  She settled on PSP SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo which I will play for the first time as soon as I finish with this entry.  While in K-Mart, an announcement for a free drawing for a gold bracelet was announced, so sister and I stopped by the podium to get a ticket.  I looked at the tickets and saw a number ending in 68 and in 61 as I picked up the 61 ticket.  After the little sales pitch, the man picked a winner out of the tickets and 68 won. We finished our last minute shopping and headed home for more last minute preparations of gift wrapping and the group had already started gathering.  Egg-nog was made and the gifting began.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening.