Christmas 2022

Well, the holidays are now over for the foreseeable future. Christmas has come and gone and it was back to reality this morning. 

We actually had a pretty good holiday season this year. I was off work from 12/23 until today (1/2/23). Ten days was nice - and it was all paid! It's been awhile since that has happened. Jane also had all last week off (other than some remote work here and there to keep the place going).

The two of us attended the Christmas Eve service at St. Paul's Lutheran Church where all three grandkids participated. Anna even played the xylophone on one song - right out in front of everyone and everything (from the balcony).

The boy and his bride were with us from shortly after noon on Christmas Day until the morning of 12/28 when they drove back to Atlanta.

We never did have a "family meal" for Christmas, but were at least able to open presents together on Christmas night.

Mostly we did a lot of eating, drinking, and lazing around the house. We also played a few rounds of Mexican Dominoes and Farkle.

The one group activity we all did was laser tag! We intended for the nine of us to go bowling, but apparently Tuesday is a big league day, so laser tag it was. Jane and I had never done it before, and it was so much fun (at least for me). We played two rounds, and worked up quite a sweat in the process.

As for gifts: I got a bottle of Bob Dylan bourbon, Bombas socks, a tree face, and a Carter metal mug. I got Jane a necklace, her usual Ansel Adams calendar, and I got pickleball rackets for the both of us.

On Thursday we went to Buda to my mom's. The Feipels also went. We arrived Thursday afternoon and came back home Saturday late-morning. It was an okay time, but Friday found me struggling with having people around for a week. Jane was gone almost the entire day, and I got a bit moody. I needed some alone time, and actually went for a 30-minute walk, which was the most exercise I'd done since the marathon on Nov. 5.

New Year's Eve found us finally back home by ourselves. We had supper at the 07 Pub and watched TV. I think we made it until midnight, but we weren't really paying attention. I believe we watched 'Glass Onion' (and another night watched 'The Banshees of Inisherin').

And... that's about that. It was nice having time off work and a bit of family time. It always goes too fast.