Christmas Traditions

Rachel and I have been married for about 6 years, and every Christmas we have spent Christmas Eve at the house of one set of parents and spent the night and Christmas morning with the other set of parents. Not an ideal situation if you ask me. Why? Because neither house is warm enough for Rachel and neither of us sleeps well on air beds or fold-out couches. While I do enjoy spending time with my family on Christmas, I like getting a good night's sleep even more. And where better to get a good night's sleep than at your own house in your own bed. Especially since my bed is a Tempur-Pedic bed. So this year, Rachel and I decided that we would have Christmas dinner with our parents, go home and sleep in our own bed and then go back to the parents house later in the afternoon on Christmas day. I liked spending Christmas morning at home with just the three of us. It was nice and quiet and I didn't feel like I got lost in the hubub of the holiday rush at my parents house. Not that I don't like to spend the holiday with my family, but sometimes you just need a break. We had our own real tree, and decorated our house and opened presents and everything at our own house. It was also nice to be able to focus on Ammon's first Christmas, and not have to compete for anyone else's attention. It just made for a more pleasant morning (since Ammon isn't big enough to know that he needs to wake up as early as he can to see what Santa has left under the tree for him!), and then at our own pace we went and spent time with the family. No rush, no pressure. So I think that's what we are going to do every year from now on. And starting next year, we are going to cut down our own Christmas tree as well. And get the house decorated earlier. And make sure the majority of the shopping is done before my peak season at work starts (like two weeks before). And have the house clean. And set up proper video equipment. And...
Whatever.

Next Subject

I decided to split this post up into a few sections so that it looks like I have been better about blogging. In this post I would like to actually talk about Christmas. Our small little family decided to do Christmas at our own house for once. I really liked the idea of sleeping in my Tempur-Pedic bed and having Ammon sleep in his own crib. I hate sleeping at other peoples houses, if only because Ammon doesn't deal with that very well at this age. He is most comfortable and most likely to sleep through the night in his own crib, and that is really better for everyone involved. Anyway, we went over to my parents house for dinner on Christmas Eve. It has been our family tradition for the last few years to have steak and seafood for dinner that night. I don't know why, but I'm not gonna complain. I love steak. I love crab, shrimp and scallops. I love them even more on the same plate. Mmmmm.....
Then since Aaron and Courtney (brother and sister-in-law (who doesn't like seafood, incidentally)) and their daughter, and Micah and Nancy (brother and sister-in-law) were over, we decided to open family gifts. I got some "interesting" things: a Pez Dispenser, a Superman sports bottle, a 2gb micro-SD card for my mp3 player, and some other odds and ends. My parents gave me a new coat and the promise of a good butchers knife, which I have really wanted for a while. Rachel gave me a portable DVD player that also reads SD cards and has a Ipod video dock. Now all I need is an Ipod video... Ammon gave me a can of Spaghetti-O's since we both like them and he thought I might share with him. I got Ammon's present out of the trash, it's a computer keyboard, since he likes to pound on the keys when he sits at the computer with me (like right now). I got Rachel a little keychain digital picture viewerThat was broken out of the package, so that was fairly disappointing. I also got her a Nintendo Wii. The jury is still out on whether she really likes it or just kind of likes it. I'll let you know later, when she's had more of a chance to play with it. I am pretty fond of it though.

Ok....Two Days Left In 2007

Where did the year go? I was just getting used to writing 2007 at work, and now I'm gonna be confused about the date for at least a month. That happens to me every year though, so it's nothing new I guess. Ok so where should I start? How about with work? The last two weeks before Christmas are known affectionately as Peak at Fedex. That means that our lives and the lives of our families are given up in order to deal with the chaos of the Christmas shipping season. I worked over 60 hours both those weeks and about died. Most drivers just have to deal with increased volume on their own routes, and most can handle it without many problems. Me on the other hand, I get dumped on since I don't have my own route. This year, it was my pleasure to pick up all of our bulk shippers. That meant I got a large Penske rental truck, and it was my job to fill it up. I picked up at places like Amazon.com and Pure Food Fish in Pike Place Market (the only fish mongers I would go to or order from there) and RPI (an online printing company, where I picked up 5,000 packages one day). I filled the truck up twice on really heavy days. Luckily it was NOT my job to unload the truck, because I probably would have collapsed. I got to eat lunch while 3 other people unloaded the freight. The only really good thing to come from all that was my paycheck. Other benefits include a sore back, getting up really early, getting home really late, not seeing my family, and working in the cold wet weather for hours at a time.

Only one post in November? Lame!

So sue me. So I only got one post in in November. November is a lousy month anyway, right? The only thing worth talking about in November is Thanksgiving. And my grandma's birthday, which I forgot to acknowledge because I am a bad bad boy. We had Chinese food for thanksgiving this year. It had kind of become the new Alldredge family tradition, Chinese on Thanksgiving. Here's the reasoning: Rachel and I have parents that live in the same city. Both sets of parents want to see us on Thanksgiving. Both sets of parents want to have dinner with us. My brothers and sisters aren't able to come for Thanksgiving till the weekend. My mom wants to have traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family, but not twice in one week. That's just not how we do things in my family. The same meal more than once a month is unconscionable, let alone in the same week. So, to solve the conundrum, my mother decided that we would do Chinese for lunch on Thanksgiving. Home made, too. Mmmmmmmmmm..... good! Then, we have turkey on that Saturday, when the whole family can get together. That allows Rachel and I to eat lunch at one house, and dinner at the other and we are spared the horror of trying to eat two turkey dinners the same day. It just works better that way.