‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…  But I have to admit, it started pretty late.  I’m going to say around 11:00am.  That’s mostly because Christmas Eve lasted until about 3:00am… Of course, I didn’t expect to find my Dad wearing shorts(!) on Christmas Day.

I was very happy that Lucy was able to join my family for Christmas day.  Mostly because she brings a lot of …. prettiness to the affair.

Lucy and I decided the best gift to get my Dad would be some nice toasty warm motorcycle gloves.  Riding to work at 2am can make you hands pretty cold without some quality leather!  As usual, my Dad managed to create comedy even out of the most mundane of acts.

For my mother, a package of selected running accessories was more appropriate.  The set included gloves, a technical shirt, and this cool Nike gear sack.

Did I mention that I like having Lucy around because she makes the place a lot prettier?

As with any event at the Shiba house, Shadow (the cat) was there to help us out.  Here he is showing his snide feline indifference to my excitement.

He may have been indifferent to what I was doing, but I get it now.  He was actually just way more interested in the food that Lucy was holding in her hands.  I didn’t know that  cats like brownies… but I guess the rule is; if you are eating it, shadow wants it.

Now we come to my favorite gift of all… And that’s not to downplay everyone else’s gifts.  I thank everyone for their generosity, and everything they gave me this Christmas.  But this gift is going to be responsible for most of these posts from now on.  And, I am very grateful to my Dad for thinking of it.  I’m also impressed that he basically got me to tell him exactly which one I wanted without me even having a clue what I was doing.  Behold, the Canon PowerShot 870is.  (And an extra battery and leather case)

Gifts aside, the highlight of Christmas was definitely spending time with my Grandmother at her house.  It was also nice to see her eating something besides peanut butter crackers.

Well, that’s all for today.  I finally finished the Christmas Day post, and it’s January 6th.  That’s one post down, and several more to go to finish off the “Holiday Season”… And What a season it has been!  See you soon…

… and at the Ledezma house, it’s time to open presents!  After a stop-off at midnight mass (yes, we literally went to MIDNIGHT mass at 12:00am) we were ready to get things started.  It seemed the simplest method would be to start with the oldest person, and work our way on down the line.  So, Miguel and Eva were first to get their presents. Miguel received some needed supplies for his upcoming classes for Court Translation, and Eva got a new mirror for her bathroom.  A much nicer one than she had been looking at…

Not surprisingly, along with the variety of gifts came an amazing variety of gift wrapping techniques.  Now, when I was wrapping presents, I thought for sure that I would have some of the worst wrapping of the night.  But not to be outdone, Brian made sure that he proved  himself the winner in this category.  Here, we see his amazing creativity in action with this fabulous, er… ‘gift bag’:

Lucy and I, on the other hand, were surprised to find that our gifts were strangely looking like the best wrapped of the bunch.  Who knew $6 at Ikea would make such a difference?  At precisely O’dark thirty, Isaias woke up to open his presents.  Good thing Santa was able to come while we weren’t looking or something.  Anyway, here’s one of our beautifully wrapped gifts.  Isaias had no idea how to open it.

My goal this Christmas was to shower Lucy with green gifts, combining her two favorite things; running, and the color green:

To return the favor, Lucy got me some pretty cool gifts too.  First, proving that great minds think alike, we got each other the same book by one of our favorite authors, Dan Millman.  Of course, the best present, by far, was my DVD of the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch.

Jorge’s presents were very much appreciated, and Lucy and I could hardly resist awkwardly showing him our appreciation.  I swear these hugs didn’t feel as awkward as they look on camera.

Then one of the latest, and most important present was revealed… Tequila.  Tequila, as you might know is like the Ledezma-equivalent of Vitamin Water (minus the 50-cent endorsement).  Jorge was, as you can imagine, very excited about this gift as it went perfectly with Don Miguel’s own present.

And, it is only fitting that after receiving such a great gift, he offers a toast to the Tequila gods and baby Jesus.

As always, the gathering was a memorable one… A group picture was in order, and thanks to the automatic timer that was possible.  But, somehow that also made me look like a total idiot because there was no room for me without squatting.

That’s it… we were off to bed, to spend the next morning with the Shiba family.

Peace, my people!