Traditions

It's Christmas Eve.  Already.  Seems like it should still be summer, but it's already Christmas and the end of the year is not far behind.

It's a holiday today, so I didn't have to go in to the office.  I'm on vacation next week, Monday through Thursday will be the last of my vacation days for the year.  Then next Friday is also a holiday.

Among other things, my birthday is next Monday.  49.  We're celebrating it by going to Incredible Pizza on Monday.  Then, I think I'll probably go grocery shopping.  Yeah, I know - but it needs to be done and I'd just as soon get it done and over with early in the week. :)

But we have already started celebrating my birthday.  Yesterday, my boss was talking about today at work and when I reminded him that it was a holiday and nobody would be there, he looked funny.  Then he told me that he'd ordered me a birthday cake and was going to pick it up (this) in the morning and bring it to the office.  I suggested that he put it in the freezer and we'd have it when I got back.  This morning, he brought it out to the house so that I wouldn't have to wait.  Otter was overjoyed, she took advantage of the fact that it had just been delivered and she'd just gotten up - she had birthday cake for breakfast!  That isn't something that happens too often, by the way.  But it was fun.  Bill and I had already had breakfast, so we had dessert.

Anyway.  Traditions.  We have a few of them.  One of them, which we started when Otter was about to celebrate Christmas for the third time is our Living Room picnic.  Her first Christmas, we lived in SA and were with family on Christmas Eve.  The next year, we'd moved to OK but went Home for Christmas that year.  Then the next year, we had Christmas morning with Grandpa & Sweetie and that is always a fun traditon.  But we wanted something for Christmas Eve, partially as a way to keep a very active & excited 3 year old occupied!  So we started the picnic tradition on Christmas Eve.  It's chips & dip, sausage & cheese, crackers, etc.  We still have it on the evening of the 24th, but now it's in the dining room.  Because we didn't want to invite the dogs!  Otter also gets to open one small gift Christmas Eve.  She thinks she has decided which one to open tonight.  The tag says it's from Bill & me, but I can't remember specifically what it is.

Christmas morning traditions include what we refer to as Bill Breakfast.  Bill makes a huge breakfast for us, Grandpa & Sweetie and we look forward to it all year.  We eat way too much, but we have a great time and get to visit without having to be in a rush.  Then we open presents after that.  Last year, we actually had it on the 26th of December because a major winter storm hit mid-morning on the 24th and there was a great deal of ice.  Even though it was the next day, it was still a lot of fun.  Just a day late.

Sweetie, bring your appetite!  Bill's menu for tomorrow morning includes waffles & syrup, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits & gravy.  Then, we might manage to waddle into the living room for presents!  Because it's Christmas, I'll have bacon - which is about the only time all year that I actually eat it.

Then, after all that food, we'll be lucky if we can stay awake.  :)

Otter has another tradition.  Yaya Bears.  The first year we were in OK and didn't go Home for Christmas, my dad asked me to get something from him for her.  WalMart had just come out with their annual Christmas teddy bear and I knew that Otter would love one.  So that was what I got and each year, Dad would ask me to get her another one to be from him.  She's got a bunch of them.  After he died, I still got her one that year and it was one of the ways she still felt close to him.  Even though she's 18 now, she still gets a Yaya Bear each year.  She's pretty much outgrown the stuffed animal thing, but Yaya Bears are different.  They are part of the Christmas traiditon and we use them as part of our Christmas decorations now.

Here's a few of them.  Otter piled them on her bed for the picture.  They are too tempting to a couple of puppies to be left in easy reach.

And a few more added to the pile!  She's got several more, they are in a box in the attic.  This is just a sampling of the Yaya Bears.  Yaya was what Otter called my dad.

The bears are dated on one foot.

While we don't really go Christmas shopping on Christmas eve if we can avoid it, Otter likes to go to the dollar store on the 24th.  We did that this morning, then we went to the post office to clear our box, took a few books back to the library's overnight drop and stopped at an antique store - the one where I found the picnic basket, Froggy.  We had a little time to kill before the post office, so we decided to spend it there.  $3.00 Fenton, I'd say it was a sucessful trip.

Cheap Fenton.  Always a good thing!