A Very Merry Christmas

Well, Christmas finally came and I have to say, it was worth the wait.
My family isn't into the whole 'invite every blood relative in the country over to the house to open presents and catch up' scene so it was, over all, very calm and relaxing.
First my little sister and I had to do the tradition of waking up early to watch Yule Log.
No joke, we do it every year without fail.
This time we decided to be reasonable about the whole thing and wake up at 7:30 rather than our normal 3 or 4 which I think worked out best for everyone involved.
After the ceremonial watching of the burning log and questioning wither or not it was burning up, little sister and I went up stairs for the other time honored tradition of watching the Christmas tree.
Finally, 8:00 rolled around and it was time to wake the parents.
This may sound like a simple task, and it is, the waking at least. But parents have this annoying tendency of wanting to stay in bed and only agreeing to get out if you get them coffee.
So, I entrusted little sister with the coffee job while I went to wake up older sister.
Hey, she's a college kid, sleeping is kinda what they do best.
Soon enough everyone was up and in the living room and the stockings were dumped out and looked through.
Everyone was pleased with what they got and no sooner had the contents of the stockings been discovered when little sister started to hand out the presents.
The living room quickly became a storm of wrapping paper, tissue paper and bags peppered with the sound of excited shouts and giggles.

This is one of the many reasons I love Christmas; seeing someone's face when they get the perfect gift. Seriously, it makes me smile every time. Sure, getting gifts is pretty awesome, but seeing someone's face after they've received the gift you've been planning for months and trying desperately to hide for months is way better if you ask me.

After the presents had been unwrapped they had to be tried out, I mean that's the way it is with presents. So Dad, older sister, little sister and I were all doing a mario cart race while listening to Russian Pop.
Needless to say, it was an experience.
All of us giggling and racing.
We didn't play nice, though. Bananas were flying, people were being shoved off the tracks and into the ocean or the abyss, but there were smiles all around, so it was cool.

After that we had a nice quiet ham lunch which was followed by a watching of the movie Wall-E.

And now, after the Christmas excitement, everyone's enjoying the time off and just relaxing.

All over, a nice holiday that I'll have a hard time forgetting or replacing.

Merry Christmas, everyone.