Christmas Eve at home

I have been out of sorts all day, and I couldn't figure out why until Jeff told me.

This is the first Christmas Eve since Biscuit was born that we haven't been traveling, and I had no idea what to do with myself.

I worked today until 5 p.m., but as I was walking out of the building, I couldn't figure out where to go and what to do.

Christmas 2008: I was on maternity leave because Biscuit was born in November of that year.

Christmas 2009, 2010 and 2011: The day came on a weekend, so we were driving to Jeff's brother's house (1 1/2 hours away from home) or coming home from my parents' house (2 1/2 hours away from home).

This year, we did all our traveling over the weekend.

I thought it might be fun to go to a church service this evening, but all the ones I could find either started at 5 p.m. (I didn't leave work until then) or 10 p.m. (candlelight services that the boy couldn't last through).

Then I thought I might cook a nice dinner. Except that I didn't have anything thawed out from the freezer, and I really didn't feel like going to the grocery store.

Finally, we realized that we had forgotten to deliver some presents to a friend, so we grabbed the presents and jumped in the car. We dropped off the gifts and chatted for a few minutes. Then we drove around looking at some Christmas lights. Then we stopped for dinner. Then we looked at a few more Christmas lights. Then we drove home and had planned to open our gifts to each other.

About that time, Biscuit tried my patience to the point that I told him he was really close to not getting to open the presents he had under the tree. Have I mentioned that his ears stopped working when he turned 4?

We finally got things straight with him and opened our presents to each other. Then we laid out cookies for Santa, and Biscuit went to bed.

Even though Biscuit has been around for 4 years, we're still getting the hang of handling these holidays.