Holiday Recap

This year we attempted to have a low key Christmas - though we promise to scale things down each and every year and it never ever happens. We're at the point where Ruben and I no longer really buy gifts for one another. I mean seriously, we are adults and we pretty much just buy anything and everything we want within reason. Sure I want a new camera, I want the big Cricut, I want larger diamond earrings - but I know I don't really need them. This year Ruben and I bought a new mattress and box spring...that was our gift for each other. My guess is when you really have everything you really want or need, then you start buying the practical stuff as gifts instead. Since we don't really buy gifts for each other anymore, we allot an amount to be used for Natalie to buy us gifts. We don't allot much money, cause really Christmas is for kids and she's all that matters - though we do buy gifts for our family.
So this year I got the usual - lots and lots of perfume. His mom, 2 brothers, & my sister in law bought me huge bottles of CK Eternity and CK Obsession. These are yearly necessities for me. I'm a perfume addict and will go through a 3.4 oz bottle of Obsession in a year. His mom always keeps me stocked and I wouldn't have it any other way! Ruben used the allotted money to buy me 2 different large bottles of Gucci perfume, and a large bottle of Christina Aguilera Inspiration perfume. This made me very happy - I love having a dozen bottles or more of perfume to chose from! I took his allotted money and bought him a new PSP that came with a memory card, a game, a movie and a voucher to download a game. He needed a new PSP since his brother accidentally ran off with his after his summer visit here. His family sent him some gift cards to buy games or movies. My sister had sent us some Hawaiian shirts and stuff earlier in the year - so we only bought for the kids.
Natalie cleaned up with all kinds of toys, games, and books. My sister sent Natalie a $50 "credit card" for Build-a-Bear - which served as both a Christmas and birthday gift for her. She got lots of Indiana Jones figures, Clone Wars figures, a Ben 10 omni watch and figures, Bakagan figures, Pokemon Trainers, HSM & HM dolls. She got a Camp Rock keyboard, Nerf Dart Tag playset, Littlest Pet Shop Bratz Doctor playset, Bratz perfume, HSM make-up kit and case. I'm not even sure if I can tell you all the games she got, but here are the ones I do know - Nerf N-Strike w/guns, Wii Outdoor Challenge w/mat, Clone Wars w/sabers, Boom Blox, Viva Pinata, plus about 6 more. She got a Clone Wars build your own lightsaber kit, and a RC helicopter....the 2nd one she's had cause the last got run over by a neighbor. She also got these really awesome books on the human body, the frog body, and outer space.....they all had either pop out pages with sound, and the frog one was detailed layer by layer of the frog's body - the pages had little plastic parts of the legs, insides, skin, etc. The books were a huge hit - she's really into science or biology type stuff. I think one of the coolest gifts she got was an EyeClops BioniCam. It's like a microscope. You can take it anywhere and use it to look at all kinds of stuff. you can save the images on a thumb drive, it has a screen but also plugs into a TV for a bigger picture. I used it to look at my diamonds - wow, what you see is amazing compared to the naked eye. And to top things off, she also got a Razor E125 Electric Scooter. I didn't plan on buying her an electric scooter cause I had heard all the neighborhood kids were getting some kind electric bikes, but we had been out shopping and she saw it and called me on an unfulfilled promise I had made. I didn't want to get her one cause I thought she was too young - as most are for 12 and up, but this particular model was for 8 and up...so I couldn't argue she wasn't old enough - plus I knew I couldn't really put it off any longer as we intend to let her chose her own presents for her birthday and I really don't want her to waste it all on just a few gifts. So I figured why not - it was on sale, she wanted it, and she was old enough for it - but instead of letting her have it then when we bought it, I made her wait another week cause I knew it had potential for creating a commotion around the neighborhood with all the other kids. But looking back I see now it was kinda crappy to make it part of her Christmas gifts. It wasn't our original intention, but the gift we planned on buying her - D-Rex was sold out EVERYWHERE and couldn't be found at it's original price anywhere. The only places that did have it online had jacked up the price to some insanely high price, so we said screw it. So that's the just of our Christmas. There's lots of present I left out cause I honestly can't remember all the crap she got!
For Christmas Eve we had leftover spaghetti from the night before - I always make too much! Christmas Day I made a spiral glazed ham, candied yams, green bean casserole, rolls, and then we had a red velvet cake to top things off. We had hopes of going to see Marley & Me over the weekend, but I've been feeling kinda crappy with a head cold for the last week, so we just stayed home and watched some of the many new movies we have....we watched Step Brothers and it was AWESOME - but the good news is that the lump on my jawbone went away......so yay, I was right it likely was just a lymph node - and though it was just the 3 of us, we had an wonderful Christmas together anyway.