Christmas 2006 after-action report

Lisa and I spent last Friday evening at my parents' place having some Christmas (dining together, exchanging gifts etc.) with them and my sister. We then went home and about 10:30, we drove off into the dark knight for Lisa's parents' home in Georgia. It was about 4:30 a.m. that Atlanta shined bright in front of us, aglow with night lights and Christmas cheer. Another hour after that and we got to her folks' place and promptly turned in for a few hours' sleep...

...'cept I came down with the most horrid case of strep throat that I've had in a very long time! And I had the worst of it the next few days: out of Christmas day itself, I only really remember an hour or so of it. The rest of the time I was in bed burning with fever. It was only the following day that I felt well enough to get up and get out some.

So, not the best of Christmases this year. But I guess I should be thankful: Lord knows that it could have been worse. I'm glad that I was able to share what I was able to enjoy of it with my family... and I'm thankful that they took care of me.

Being sick didn't mean that Santa was afraid to come by. It was a pretty nice haul this year...

Here's the bulk of the stuff that Lisa and I got. She got a bunch of CDs (including the new one from Taylor Hicks and the soundtrack for Wicked), a scrapbooking set, the most recent edition of Dance Dance Revolution for Xbox and the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. On the DVD front I got Lost Season 2, King Kong Extended Edition and from my in-laws, The Princess Bride: a movie that I had never seen until five years ago and kicked myself for not having seen it earlier and have wanted to get a copy for awhile but never have... now I got one. In the pic you can also see the martini set that Lisa got me that I already mentioned getting. For Xbox I got Call of Duty and The Godfather, which was a surprise gift from Lisa and I think I'm going to get addicted to this one in the worst way. There's also the requisite Star Wars gifts (some Chocolate Mpire Christmas tree ornaments including C-3PO and R2-D2). There's also a new DVD player which I'm going to be writing about more later on, that has upconversion for high-def TVs.

But this, hands-down, is my favorite Christmas gift for 2006:

Last Friday night at my parents' place I got a gift-wrapped box from Dad. When it was opened had a lot of styrofoam packing chips, a card, and this. The card had some money in it but this was the real prize. See this old hammer? This belonged to my grandfather. I never knew either of my granddads: they both died before my time and Dad's dad passed away a year and a half before I was born. This is something of his, that is now mine. I can't begin to describe the sense of connection this thing has come to represent. I'm thinking of putting it in a shadow box to mount on the wall.

And, that was basically Christmas 2006. There would have been a lot more to report about it, had I actually been conscious enough to experience it. Maybe there'll be a more thorough write-up for Christmas 2007 :-)