A major holiday with the Griswald's wouldn't be complete without water leaking somewhere!

We had a wonderful Christmas. Thank you sooooooooo much to our wonderful family for sharing such a great and exhausting day with us.

Of course, the person who least likes Christmas, me, was the first one up on Christmas morning. I think that I just wanted to get the show on the road, the day started, and be on our way. The sooner we entered into chaos land, the sooner we'd come home to the mess we created.

Chicker woke up at 8 and the two of us decided it was our duty to wake up the older brother. We did. It took him a minute to figure things out, then we headed to the basement to assess the Christmas delight. Ross and I didn't do a very good job of explaining good old Saint Nick to the kid however because all day long, whenever he was asked, "Did Santa Claus come to your house?" he promptly replied, "Not yet!" with emphasis. However, when asked, "Did you get presents this morning?" he emphatically and frantically replied, "Yes!" and started to list off his pirate booty...most importantly a baseball bat and ball.



We left home and headed to my parents house for a great morning of opening gifts, a delicious breakfast (thanks mom) that left us all stuffed, and then some awesome lounging around. I had a great nap on the floor and didn't even mess up my hair. Thanks for loaning me the spongebob pillow, Willie. By mid afternoon, both of the boys were entering Jekyll/Hyde meltdown modes, but we packed up and trucked over to my grandma's house for even more gifts, food, and merriment.



My grandparents are amazing. They can't walk so good, breathe so good, or hear all that well, among other things, but they are two of the kindest, most generous people I know. My grandma spends half a year shopping for about 53 people comprising about 13 families. Her gifts are always thoughtful, beautiful, and specific to each individual family member. I love my grandparents, and my parents more than I can ever express in words - I cannot even generate the thoughts I need to think up the words. I do know one thing - my grandma has the softest hands I've ever touched and I love it.





The day was a whirlwind of paper and ribbons and bows and toys and laughter and joy. On the ride home we had two sleepy boys that we were hoping would settle in for a long winters nap.

Wrong!

As soon as the car was in the garage, the boys were up and ready for action; toys, hungry hungry hippos and.....

Chicker figured out how to crawl.

On Christmas Day!

He's crawling everywhere and grabbing all his brothers toys. This leads the brother to take the toy away, yell, and then push the baby brother over, for good measure.

And, in our family, what major holiday would be complete with out a little bit of water damage?

After our long day, we were finally home to play - the boys in the basement and me in the family room sorting and organizing and making piles. I carried clothes upstairs and had to use the bathroom. The toilet I selected was a bit low on water, leading me to the conclusion that it was plugged. I flushed for good measure - it was plugged alright - and went downstairs to identify the culprit and order him to fix things promptly.

To make a long story short - the plugging, and the flushing led to overflowing.....lots of overflowing of lots of brown, stinky water. And what does a good toilet over flow on a carpeted floor from a toilet with a crack in it get you?

Why, toilet water leaking through the ceiling in two spots right into your living room, that's what.



And a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

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