Whew! Where is the time going? I can't believe we've already flown past Halloween and Thanksgiving. The only two holiday festivities I got involved with prior to Christmas day was baking cookies with my girlfriends Christina and Renee and a stroll to the mall to help mom with her Christmas shopping. Tree? Nope. We never put ours up. It just seemed futile by the time Keith and I both had a day off together...it was already 10 days before Christmas. I just wasn't in the mood. For Christmas, but not the process....carols (finally listened to Christmas music on Christmas Day as we headed to dad's), decorating, or checking out the Christmas lights in nearby neighborhoods. I did get Seth in to see Santa. Santa visited the Dash Point Metropolitan Market where daddy works. Keith called to let us know Santa's sleigh had pulled up and to get right over and get a pic with Santa. Oh and what a good looking Santa he was. He held a smoking pipe ...a bit odd, but years from now...we'll all laugh at that one and think "who smokes anymore?" I was having a time trying to adjust my nicer camera due to dark lighting (posing outside the store)...so luckily I'd brought the smaller one for the video. About the time that I was aligned to take a photo....Seth went from complete compliance to outright screaming. It was precious because one of his dad's photos with Santa, was doing the same thing. People around me were trying to cheer him up in order for me to get a "better" photo, but I loved the one I got.
Christmas morning the 3 of us drove up to Dad and Laurie's for Christmas breakfast. It was absolutely delicious as usual. We had a few twist this year...It started at 0930am (normally it's 9am )Megan made the potatoe dish and Deb made a gluten free blueberry coffeecake- it was yum! I chipped in some Russian tea cakes. Not much, but they were buttery delicious. Seth got to visit with Great Grandma Betty and Edna, Auntie Debby, Uncle Don, Papa Hank, Nana Laurie, Cousins Drew, Megan and Megan's friend Chad. Afterwards, we headed south to visit with Keith's side of the family- Alice, Rich, Alicia, and Jessie. From there we dropped by mom's work to say a quick hello....here's where I step on on the infamous "soapbox". I was quite shocked at the number of people going into the grocery store...on Christmas Day! I watched in disbelief as a continuous stream of shoppers went from parking lot to store and vice versa.
NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO WORK ON CHRISTMAS DAY. NO BUSINESS SHOULD BE OPEN. AND NO ONE SHOULD BE GOING INTO ANY ESTABLISHMENT. WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE THE REASON PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK THE HOLIDAY- BECAUSE THEIR COMPANY LOOKS AT STATS AND THINKS THAT BEING OPEN IS JUSTIFIED BY PAST PURCHASES. YOU COULDN'T GET THIS DONE THE DAY BEFORE OR AFTER CHRISTMAS? SHAME ON YOU! AND IF YOU THINK PEOPLE SHOULD WORK THE HOLIDAY- THEN WHY DON'T YOU VOLUNTEER?! OH YOU'LL GLADLY TAKE THE DAY OFF, GET PAID, BUT YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO WORK! GEESH!
So to say the least, it disturbed me to see mom working as families came and went with silly purchases like papertowels, canned goods, $1 movies from the vending machines, and Keith's favorite one.....people were lined up and scratching off lotto game tickets as soon as they were purchased.
We tiredly headed home where Seth went to work on opening his abundacy of gifts, Keith and I exchanged Christmas stockings left by Santa, had take-out Teriaki that we had purchased THE DAY PREVIOUS, and relaxed.
