Merry Christmas! I hope you're all enjoying your day with family, friends, and those assorted colorful characters that you're obligated to spend one day a year with. We've just gotten back from a road trip to visit the in-laws, and now we're getting ready to have our first Christmas at home in five years. Lori says she's enjoying being home, but I hate it. It doesn't seem right having a Christmas tree, presents, and snow outside. What kind of Christmas is that?
Still, in a few hours it will all be over. The presents will be open, the kids will most likely be back asleep, and to be honest, I'll be quite shocked if Lori hasn't started taking down the Christmas tree. There's still been no decision made on an afternoon movie (Alvin & the Chipmunks is out as we went to see that yesterday), and fortunately my kids are past the point where I have to spend all day Christmas Day assembling things for them, so I guess it's just a matter of taking it easy and relaxing until dinner or the Bears/Packers game - whichever starts first.
When I have all that down time however, I think. It doesn't happen often (at least I've been told many times that I don't think much) but it does seem to happen on Sundays, or sometimes late Saturdays. Either way, when it does happen, I make sure to write everything down. That way, on Sunday mornings, you folks can wake up and try to decipher the strange questions that are running through my mind. Lucky you:
How do you deal with unexpected Christmas cards?
There should be some kind of criteria for knowing whether or not you're supposed to send somebody a Christmas card. I don't care what criteria we use. A certain number of years known, a minimum number of meals eaten together, or even a certain distance living away from each other would all get the job done. I'd just like to know, because at least once a year I get a card from somebody I wasn't expecting one from, and while I'm usually thrilled to hear how they're doing, I feel bad that we didn't send them one. This usually ends up with me dashing off a quick card and dropping it in the mail, but let's face it...when the card arrives more than a week after Christmas, you know that they forgot about you. The rules are needed.
Do you respond to unexpected Christmas cards, or do you just ignore it?
Do you prefer a hot or cold Christmas?
I've been chatting with some of my online friends on Twitter (I'm @vangrizz if you'd like to come join in) and I've been laughing at some of them for all their wishing for a white Christmas. I don't get it. The majority of Christmases in my life have been white, and I can't think of anything good about it. I know some old guy wrote a song about a White Christmas a while back, but I'd really rather get up and hit the beach (or Disneyland) instead of shoveling the driveway again. Avoiding the snow would be a definite Christmas priority for me.
Are you a white Christmas fan? Or are you a sane person?
Wait...I'm actually going to have to do this now aren't I?
I wrote about the prizes I was trying for in the Passports with Purpose fundraiser a while back. Well yesterday was the draw, and sure enough I won one of the prizes I donated to. This summer, our family is going to head out east and use our family pass for the Monkey Trunks high rope and zipline park. A huge thank you to Mary of Travel with Teens and Tweens for hosting the prize, but it's now dawning on me that I'm actually going to have to participate in this outing. My wife has been asking to go ziplining for quite a while, and it's been very easy to be supportive when there were no real prospects of us doing it any time in the near future. Now that it seems like we'll have the chance to hang from high wires this summer, I'm finding it a little tougher to fake the bravado. Whose bright idea was it to try for this prize anyways? I should have stuck with the pickpocket proof pants!
Have you been ziplining? Is it scary?
Do you wash your car on road trips?
Where I live, it snows a lot in winter. Where I travel to most, it rains a lot. I'm sure you can imagine that somewhere in the middle of the journey between the two places, it's a real mess. In fact, every time I take a road trip from Kelowna to Vancouver, the van ends up looking like somebody tried to get it ready for Woodstock. Still, even with the van covered in roof to tire mud, I'm hesitant to wash the van because I'm going to turn around the next day and drive all the way back, thus putting another coat of mud right back on. It seems like a waste of time (and money if I do it the lazy way) to clean the van, but I bet that even the most desperate of hitchhikers would pass on a ride if it meant they had to touch the door handle of the van.
Does it make sense to wash your car if you know it's going to get dirty the next day?
What was in the Kate Spade bag?
Ok, I know you've been waiting since I posted a picture a few weeks ago, so here you go. Me opening the Kate Spade bag:
Now that's a perfect gift for me! If Kate Spade sold those, I'd be much more likely to shop there.
