What follows is the obligatory regurgitation of events as they unfolded over the past 24 hours.

Christmas Eve, 2005 – 7pm

Guests began arriving to our annual Christmas Eve get together. Susan’s family’s tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve; in my family, no one is allowed to open any gifts before 6am, Christmas Morning. To compromise, we do Christmas twice. Christmas Eve, we exchange gifts with Susan’s family. Christmas morning, we exchange gifts with my family. Just like every year everyone promised to “cut back on the amount of food” they were going to bring, and just like every year we ended up with enough to feed everyone I know until at least March.

Mason could hardly contain himself. When people started arriving he grabbed anything with his name on it and asked, “can we open present yet?” once a minute for the next half an hour. The rest of us chatted, made plates of food, and kept telling Mason “not yet!” Once everyone had arrived we began our gift exchange. From my in-laws I got several cool things, including the Star Wars Edition of Trivial Pursuit, a popcorn popper that looks like a vendor’s cart, and lots and lots of candy! Mason got a really neat interactive globe, some Lincoln Log and other random toys. The kids seemed to really like their gifts; the girls got six sweaters each and smaller things, while Dylan got one of those remote control cars that drives up walls, a Bionicle set, and other stuff. I really can’t convey how much food was here. Everybody ate, drank, and had a good time. Everyone from both of our families (along with one of Susan’s family friends Linda and Jim Smith) came and had a good time. The party lasted until around 10pm.

Dad wanted to see Mason open his Christmas presents first thing, so he ended up sleeping in our spare bedroom. Once everyone left, Dad and I were put to work inflating things, assembling things, adding batteries to things, and so-on. We were finally relieved of duty around midnight, after having several glasses of “Christmas Cheer”. I put new batteries in the camera, charged up the battery on the camcorder, and hit the sack.

Christmas Morning, 2005 – 5:30am

Around 5:30am Susan and I heard noises coming from the living room. Then we heard Mason’s voice. “Mason?” we said. Mason came to our room and said, “Papa said it was okay if I played with my toys.” That was pretty funny because my dad had said no such thing! Ah well. I grabbed the camcorder and shot footage for an hour or so. Mason quickly found his bouncy ball and his Star Wars bicycle and his Star Wars Legos … it was crazy! And just when you would think it would be time for all the craziness to be over, Mason remembered the fort out back and wanted to go outside and play. We made him wait until the sun came up, but once it did he was out back climbing and swinging and jumping. The day never stopped.

Around 8:30 or so, several people showed up for Dad’s waffles. I knew my sister and her husband were coming over but I didn’t know my in-laws were coming. There were plenty of waffles, Blue and Gold sausage and scrambled eggs for everyone. I had hoped for (and was really needing) a nap after another round of food, but it was not to be as Mason went out back to attack the fort again. I finally got my couple-hour nap sometime after noon.

Christmas Afternoon, 2005 – 2pm

After stirring from long-winter naps, we went over to my mom’s for more food and gifts. The last stop on the Christmas train gets the short end of the stick, as all of us were pretty wiped out by that point. Mason even fell asleep on the 10 minute ride over to mom’s. Mason got a few more Transformers and a 2-foot-tall Power Rangers robot (Megazord!) which he loves.

The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. I watched the Bears beat the Packers (har har!). I slept part of the time, Susan slept with Morgan, Mason slept, we just all slept at different times. Mason crashed out for the day around 7pm. Morgan had some cereal and went to bed around 8pm. Susan’s watching her Oprah DVD’s (preventing me from watching my horror and Seinfeld DVD’s) and I’m, well, typing.

I’m sure I’m leaving out a bunch of stuff. I got several books I’m looking forward to reading, a cool gadget that lets you listen to MP3’s in your car from dad, and all kinds of stuff. I’ll type more then the screen isn’t so blurry.

Merry Christmas!