And A Happy Holidays Were Had By All

I had a remarkably peaceful and relaxing Christmas weekend with my family.  It's my third Christmas season with Jeff, and we have a pretty comfortable and predictable schedule we've settled into.  It involves mostly time with my family, but it's usually pretty low key so it works.  

Although now that we have a program to stick to, I'm entertaining the idea of sneaking off next Christmas and having a quiet retreat instead.  

I know I said I wasn't going to do presents, but I ended up doing a couple things for my folks.  When we went to Disneyland in November with my family, we had a family photo done at Goofy's Kitchen.  My brother, however, decided not to show and was obviously not present in the photo.  In an act of stubbornness, my mother refused the photos because he wasn't in it.  Knowing my mom (after all, it's where my brother and I inherited our own stubborn, thick heads!), I waited for my parents to leave the restaurant and saved the photos from being doomed to the garbage bin.  Surprise, surprise, my mom apparently spent a lot of time a couple weeks later trying to hunt down the photos (they are supposed to make them available online).  I spent $15 at Target getting a couple of cheap frames and placed the now framed photos between two relevant cooking magazines (both my parents love to cook) and wrapped with dollar store wrapping paper.  One package per parent.  

For my brother, I made up a batch of my popular spicy peanut sauce.  I didn't think he'd be interested, but he seemed excited to experiment with it.  Maybe I was fooled, but I'm glad he seemed to like it.  

And since I think would be murdered if I didn't share, half of the peanut sauce batch I jarred up for my bestie and her hubby.  The last jar will also be gifted to friends.  Although these gifts have more to do with my love of sharing rather than the holidays.  I would have done it if I made it on a Tuesday night in February.  In fact, I'll probably make it again the first week in January.  Maybe I should start asking for my jars back.  Those things get expensive!  Oh well, I digress!

For the boy we got really simple things.  A glow in the dark puzzle.  A Lego board game (which technically I bought for myself a year ago, and still haven't used).  A Lego R2D2 present which actually never made it to my parents to be unwrapped.  A signed picture of Woody and Buzz Lightyear that never made it to the frame or got wrapped (again technically was a present from the Disney Hotel to Jeff for his birthday, but better suited to the boy).  We might save the other two presents for his birthday at this point since he isn't going to miss what he doesn't have.  He received a few presents from my family and Jeff's family and appeared to be pretty satisfied with the quality of gifts.  My mom got him a set of binoculars so we promised him a trip to the mountains or something to use them properly.  Just an excuse to get some time outdoors and be active.  To all of which I say, YAY!

Jeff and I received lots of candies and gift cards.  Looks like we'll have few excuses to make it out on some dates over the next couple months (we all received ridiculous quantities of movie bucks, so hopefully some good stuff comes out this year!).  We have seriously been neglecting date night time and it shows.  I'm thinking date night on weeks we don't have the boy and family night on weeks we do.  I need some creative, low-cost options and plan on making a list and will share here in a couple months after we have tested some.  I'm open to ideas on the cheap if anyone has some to share!

Monday we all relaxed.  I played too many video games in the morning and spent the rest of the afternoon in my office plotting devious...plots.  Danny played with some of his new toys and in the evening we helped him build a big Cars Lego set my mom got him.  

So, enough about us! How were your holidays?