Cassie's World: It's All Over

Timing with Christmas reminds me of a wedding. We spend so much time planning and preparing for it and it's over so quickly. I think I spend more time than most people planning and preparing because I get so excited about it. (Those who watch me make my Christmas list of who to buy for while sitting at the picnic table working at summer camp each year can attest to that) Without further ado, here's my Christmas recap.

We began Christmas Eve with my parents and my brother and my sister-in-law. We got together at my parents' house and we all opened our stockings. It was quick, but fun. I got some fun stuff, including some teaching stuff to use when I have a classroom again someday. We then went to church together and had a special Christmas Eve service.

After church, we went to my grandmother's with my mom's family. In my mom's family, all the adults pick names on Christmas Eve and that's how we decided who buys for whom for the following Christmas. Anyone who's still in school full time still gets gifts from everyone. I got some great stuff there, too. My uncle had picked my name, and I got some new leather boots, a vest, a scarf, and some other stuff.

After that, Dave and I went home and had plans to watch "A Christmas Story". We've both pretty much seen enough pieces of it to have seen the whole thing, but we've never actually sat and watched it from start to finish. We were exhausted, though, and I had some baking to do for the next day, so we again missed our goal of watching it start to finish (this is the 2nd year we've had that goal together; 3rd year I've had it myself).

When we got up on Christmas morning, Dave and I did presents with each other after we gave all the pets their stockings. They liked all their stuff. =)

Dave got me a Pandora bracelet, which was the main thing I wanted. He also bought me 9 charms for it! I was so excited. He also got me a bunch of B&BW stuff, storage containers for my Cricut cartridges, a hot glue gun, lip balm, and some candy. I got him the Bruins jersey he wanted. I also got him a bunch of little things (CD, books, candy, etc.).

After we did presents with one another, we went to my parents' house for dinner. It was just us and my parents and my grandmother and uncle. Small group this year, but it was nice. After that, we went with Dave's family for dinner and presents. His parents had given us some money to help us with a down payment for our new car back in November and they said that was our Christmas present. His mom had already done some shopping before that, though, so they gave us the stuff they had bought. We got some more ornaments for our tree (his parents often buy us the Peanuts ones from Hallmark because we love Peanuts) and we also got an Olive Garden gift card. His grandfather and aunt and our landlords had gotten us Olive Garden gift cards, too. Combined with the ones we already had from earlier in the year, we're up to about $125 in gift cards for Olive Garden. We're pretty excited about that. =)

We came home that night and before bed we talked to my parents and debated whether or not we were going to be traveling to my brother's the next day because of the expected storm. We ended up deciding to go and said that we would just leave before the storm gets bad. We got up the next morning and went to church and then we ventured in the snow to my brother's place with my parents. The six of us exchanged presents (we didn't do it on Christmas Eve even though we were all together) and visited for a bit. My parents (aka Santa) got us a lot of great stuff. The best things were probably the electric drill they got for Dave (he's so been wanting one of those and was so excited to get it) and an electronic stepper (I had seen one recently and thought it was the greatest thing; I told my parents I want one). The snow started to get bad
not long before we left. It took a little longer to get home, but we made it safely thanks to my dad's driving skills. =)