Christmas break

Christmas was full of Christmas parties with family and friends. I am so thankful for two full weeks off work, which is unfortunately coming to an end for me. I go back to work on Monday. Chris's break started a couple of days later than mine, so he's off until Wednesday.

I got a lot done over break. The first couple of days were full of Christmas shopping. I basically got 2/3 of my Christmas shopping done on those days. Of course, the gifts were mostly all planned in my head. I just had to brave the craziness that is Bowling Green around Christmas, which means 10x's more traffic than normal.

Wednesday was the start of Chris's break. We celebrated with pancakes and several episodes of Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls has become a habit for us on lazy mornings. Then, he left to hang out with is buddy, Mr. Bailey, and I wrapped presents for several hours. I basically didn't wrap anything until that day. I still had to keep them tucked away in our bedroom for fear of Penelope tearing the paper off.

I finally finished my Elizabeth George book, A Woman's High Calling while relaxing at Spencer's Coffee House on Thursday after a yummy lunch with my hubby. He had lunch with me, and then left me there alone to read while he went shopping for some stocking stuffer gifts for me. Friday I took Chris to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We both thought it was really good. We hadn't been to the movies since the summer, so it was a real treat.

Saturday we opened gifts at home before heading to Henderson to see my family.

Penelope actually got her new squirrel-friend after Christmas because we felt bad for not getting her anything.

We went to Granny and Poppa's for a Christmas Eve party, and then to my parents to open gifts with the immediate family. We stayed two nights. On Christmas, I visited with my sweet grandparents in Evansville.

I did a terrible job of representing everyone in my photos this year. Sorry, family.

Tearing into his first gift.

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Christmas morning "coffee" and "reading" the newspaper.

Monday we went to see Chris's family in Elizabethtown. We opened gifts, ate, visited, played with Penelope and relaxed. We stayed until Chris's dad got off of work on Tuesday evening. Then, we headed home with a carload of wonderful gifts.

Finally opening the gift from his parents after it was shipped to our place. He was excited about this one from Musician's Friend.

Penelope attack!

When I say carload, I mean carload. We packed home many beautiful gifts, but among them were some large boxed items:

Chris got a Shop-Vac from my parents. 
I got a toaster oven from my parents.
I got a standing mixer from Chris's parents.

Our carload unloaded.

We were certainly blessed again this year with lots of nice things for Christmas.

The rest of this week has been a little bit of work and a lot of relaxing. Sadly, we put up our Christmas decorations kind of early. We took down decorations on Wednesday. It marked the beginning of our packing for our move next Saturday. We started going after moving boxes and newspaper on Thursday and Friday, and we've already packed many boxes.

We still have lots to pack, but it's hard to know what to pack up a week before you move. We are slowly working on it, and I think we're in good shape for still having a week left to get it all done.

Packing up them liquor boxes!