Winter Break: Introduction and Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

As much as I truly love my home in the village, including my job, trips out and vacations, especially when they come together, come much needed. In fact, even as I write this, I feel not at all ready to return to work. Instead, I feel like blogging. Be prepared, faithful readers, this will be a blog unlike any other. As you can already see from the title, the recount of events from my 2-week Christmas Vacation will be told to you in sections by chapter. I will do my best to tell you everything in order and exactly as it happened. It will be up to you, however, to do the scrolling in order to get everything in the right timeline. Comments, as always, are much appreciated.

CHAPTER 1: Christmas and Family
Indianapolis - Monday 12/24 to Tuesday 12/25

Because of my exaggerated delay in buying tickets back to Indy for Christmas, I did not fly out of Unalakleet until December 24th, which put me in Indianapolis around 12:45 in the afternoon on December 25th - that's right, Christmas Day. (The few days I had in UNK, I pretty much laid around, slept, cleaned house, did laundry, walked, and read. It was grand.) Both parents were there to greet me at the airport after my 15 hour trip. Because I was reading a book all night on the plane, and because I am somewhat stupid, I had had very little sleep at this point. Somehow, it didn't make too much of a difference. I was glad to be with family.

I went with my Dad for the afternoon and spent Christmas with my Aunt Phyllis, who had prepared lots and lots of yummy food (including 3 deviled eggs each, though I took a little extra), my Uncle Jerry, (cousin) Kevin, (cousin) David and his girlfriend Natalie and her son, and of course David's daughter Layla. I showed off my super cool beaver hat and everyone laughed at me. My uncle put it on and looked ridiculous, so we all laughed at him. And then we opened presents. Layla got about a million. (I used to the be baby girl of the family...)


Daddy opens all of his presents very delicately, trying his hardest not to rip the paper. Personally, this drives me nuts, but whatever. I just don't look until he has his gift out.


Uncle Jerry got a new tool - a battery powered wrench or something. He was very excited, and I'm sure we all looked this cool when we were playing with it, too.


Layla got lots and lots of things, I'm sure more things than she even knows what to do with. But she was very cute anyhow.


Kevin, who is in the KKoett club, accompanied only by my brother and I, believe it or not, used to have hair down to his butt. And then he cut it all off. I kind of miss the long hair look on him, but I guess that's a little nostalgic on my part. He's still the super cool guy that he always was, though.

That evening I went over to my Mom's house where we proceeded to exchange gifts. She made me the following neat items: felted house shoes, a quilted bag, a holder for all my crochet needles (complete with brand spanking new crochet needles), a small felted bag, and a pair of wool socks. Most of those things are currently in the mail to me at this very moment, but the house shoes I kept with me, because I'm wearing them.

Christmas, although it did not feel like Christmas (whatever Christmas is supposed to feel like), was good. It is always a good excuse to visit family and to be home, and mostly to try to give gifts that you hope the receiver will like. Unfortunately, I am not a great gift giver. Perhaps acquiring this trait should be my New Year's Resolution, though I don't usually make serious ones of those. In the end, however, it was a fabulous Christmas, though it would have been better if my brother had been there with us. Somehow, we got along without him okay.