No. 1, With a Bullet

It's been two weeks since I last posted, and there has been good reason. Or, I should say, reasons. This Christmas just hit #1 on the charts, with a bullet.

Which chart, you may ask. Best Christmas ever? Worst Christmas ever?

I will answer, without equivocation. But I will not answer with just one word - I'm much to verbose for that.

It all started way back on December 18^th. Those of you keeping track know that this is the day I left for my little jaunt in Norway. From December 18-22, I spent 30 hours in transit (sleeping none of that time) and returned home on Friday afternoon. To a house with a sick pre-schooler. Seeing as how I had not slept in the previous 24 hours, and had eaten mostly airplane food, I (and Mrs. Euphrony) had reasonable confidence that I would catch this stomach bug. And, on Christmas Eve morning, I awoke with a start - straight to the bathroom. After a luxurious day spent doing you-know-what, I awoke Christmas morning ~8 pounds lighter than when I got home. Yeah.

Lil'E was all better, jumping all over and excited about everything that I had no energy to play with. Our plans (ha ha) had been to go to my parents on Christmas Eve and spend a few days there, leave Lil'E with the grandparents and come home to do some painting to get ready for the new baby. Didn't happen that way, did it? The new, improved plan was to drop Lil'E with the grandparents the day after Christmas, then do the painting and spend the New Year's weekend all together. Ha again! We're packed, getting in the car, when my parents call and say they're sick. No free time, no painting, no getting ready for the baby, no way, no how. And the best irony of all was that I had recently downloaded a free offering from iTunes: Sufjan Stevens' "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!". Triple ha!

But in this unplanned free time, we found a few things to do. Driving down to Galveston for a day trip, we went to Moody Gardens. It was very nice, all decked out in lights for Christmas, and we caught an IMAX movie: The Polar Express in IMAX 3-D. The best thing was seeing Lil'E standing up in her seat, reaching out trying to catch the 3-D snow falling and the look of wonder on her face. Kinda cool.

We ended up having three full, non-sick days at home as a family before finally heading up to my parents (a seven-hour drive) for the New Year's weekend. No rain up there, so no fireworks. We had a little date-time; always nice. I got to go get my new iPod (Kat, hope your's arrives soon) and started loading the ten new CD's I got for Christmas (I highly recommend Shaun Grove's White Flag, Jars of Clay's Good Monster, and Downhere's Wide-Eyed and Mystified) along with my full collection of CDs. We had some nice time with my parents, and a lot of good, fun play.

So, No. 1 Christmas, with a bullet. On both lists. Worst Christmas. Best Christmas. All in one year. Whew, I'm exhausted.

Tags: Sufjan Stevens, Shaun Groves, Jars of Clay, Downhere, Christmas, List, iPod, The Polar Express, IMAX