There is always so much anticipation going into Christmas. Baking, shopping, decorating and sending out cards begins weeks in advance. Of course, I’ve also got “sing in concerts for three weekends straight” on my list, making it much more difficult to fit all those things in!

Then on Christmas morning, all presents are opened in a few quick minutes and Christmas is over for another year.

I at least like that we have quite a few phases of Christmas. This year, it started early when we opened our stocking gifts at my mother-in-law’s house in November.

Friday night (part 2), we exchanged gifts with my brother and sister-in-law before our trip. We also had to open gifts sent by mail from my husband’s family so we could report back when he called either Christmas Eve or today.

Of course this morning (part 3) we opened presents from my parents. It seems like that happened days ago, not 12 hours ago. Travelling will do that. We had a flight back at 4 pm today.

After a quick dinner was the grand finale (part 4) where my husband and I exchange our gifts. He always complains about not knowing what to get, but always does very well. I do have to exchange a sweater this year because while it looks like a normal sweater, it has goofy dolman sleeves that seem to be a trend this year. I just don’t get it. Hubby understands, and agrees that it’s goofy. Too bad it wasn’t really obvious until I tried it on!

I got some really cute earrings, though! Good job, honey!

We crammed so much into our weekend, I’m just exhausted now. I’m glad to be off work for a while. Though, tomorrow I probably will try to tackle those last two projects due this year so I can actually relax, rather than worry about the work I have to finish.

In case anybody is concerned, the wise man’s head was glued back on in time for Jesus’ arrival. It was a clean break. That wise man seems to be accident prone — he was already missing fingers from a previous mishap!