Christmas Catch Up

The problem with taking a few days off from blogging, especially the days of Christmas Eve and Christmas day, is that there is much to catch up on and I have to figure out how to condense it. 'Cause really, the details of some of it are really only important/entertaining to those who actually involved! Here goes!

Christmas Eve morning I took Bess out to Hagg Lake to burn off some energy. Heffner was definitely not happy that he was getting left behind yet again, and especially when we were travelling some where in the truck. On a side note, he is getting INCREDIBLY difficult to keep quiet. If it weren't for the almighty fit that I know he would throw in the crate, I would start sticking him in there for chunks of time.:o/ Anyhow, here are some pictures from Bess at the lake:






She was able to burn off a little of her crazy energy, but not nearly as much as she would have been able to if she had Heffner to rough house with. We were originally going to meet up with my friend Kati and her two whippets, but Kati's dad passed away that morning and she was getting ready to fly out on Christmas to be with family. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but still very hard, especially at this time of year.

Next up was wrapping presents. That went pretty well, until I started wrapping the dogs' presents! Heffner KNEW that those toys were for HIM and was all sorts of nosy. As I'm wrapping, he's trying to unwrap. I finally had to banish him out of the office. Bess them came up and did her usual lean with head tilted up at me adoringly as if to say "I'm the good dog! Can I have the presents?" Yes, they are a wee bit spoiled!

After present wrapping we got ready to head out for the Christmas Eve extravaganza with Adam's side of the family. It's a joint Christmas gift exchange and birthday celebration for his grandma who's birthday it also is. It's a fun time with LOTS of great food and lots of Christmas cheer! Here's the tree with the presents sort of sprawled out.
The highlight of the night for the women folk were the Slankets (a Snuggie competitor) that we all got from the kids of the family who were hosting! I gotta tell you, now that I have one, I can totally see what all the craziness was about last year. The Snuggie was reported to be the #1 Christmas gift last year. After the Christmas craziness with it, there were Snuggie "parties" popping up all over the place. One such party was advertised on the radio in our area for an American Idol Final Snuggie party. Yes, the Snuggies were hot and now I have one!:o)
We had to head out of the festivities early because we still needed to go home and pick up the pooches and head down to my parents' in Silverton. I had been going back and forth on whether or not to bring the dogs this year. On the one hand, I obviously love having my dogs around and especially on such a mushy holiday, their company is very enjoyable. They just get so excited about EVERYTHING! On the down side, I'm trying to keep Heffner quiet, and the dogs get excited about EVERYTHING! I finally decided that it would be more enjoyable to have them there and I didn't want to leave them in the house alone over night since we weren't entirely sure what time we were going to be home the next morning. My original plan had been to bring the Rescue Remedy down to hopefully take the edge off the dogs through the night so that I could get some sleep. Unfortunately I forgot it, and boy was I sorry!!

Heffner has a hard time settling down anyhow when he's not at home. Compound that by the excitement of lots of decorations, being at my parents' (which usually means we're going to do something fun), all sorts of food smells, and a dog who hasn't gotten any exercise in a week (and is used to a daily release) and you have a dog who CAN NOT settle down through the night. He was up at least once every hour. If I just let him be and stand up and check the door, then he would start pacing in the room (Adam is a really light sleeper and was sleeping out on the couch to avoid the inevitable). After a couple times of that, as soon as I heard him stand up I would make a grab for his collar and make him lie down again. It worked pretty well, except for the fact that I was constantly on alert to hear him get up and had to fully wake up to get him to lie down again. Which meant that I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night.

We did finally get up at 5:30am, which is our usual Christmas morning start time with my family. We're early risers on Christmas morning! Go figure!:o) We ripped into the stockings first. They're sort of the speed bump to the present opening. My mom likes to use them to gain a few more minutes of shut eye. She used to go through this whole elaborate charade of needing to be woken up. First we had to have her coffee ready, then we had to spend forever trying to get her out of the bed, and finally we could get her out to the tree to start the present opening. Now, however, mwahahahahahahaha......she doesn't dare dwaddle in bed or else I unleash the hounds on her.>:o) There's certainly nothing like two giant dogs jumping up onto your bed with reckless abandon as to where their feet are going!LOL This year, it was just Bess who got to jump on the bed, but Heffner did his part by ramming his face in my mom's face. Needless to say, she gets out of bed MUCH faster than she used to!LOL

So we do early Christmas morning with my folks, then we head back home to drop off the dogs, feed them, drop off our loot, and head over to Adam's parents' house for Christmas morning part 2. They tend to get up later than my family so it works out well. More present opening and the traditional Christmas morning souffle! Then it's back home to get cleaned up and do some napping. And let the dogs open their presents.:)








Then it's time for Christmas dinner. More great food and family. And that pretty much raps things up through today. December 26th. The day that I dread all year. Because it means that Christmas is over for another year and I can no longer wear my Christmas socks, Christmas earrings, Christmas clothes, listen to Christmas music, or watch Christmas movies.:( It's kind of a sad day for me. I think it was a little harder this year because I felt like I didn't get enough time to really enjoy the season. We've had a lot of things going on at work and a lot of stress as well that has kind of put a damper on things for me this year. It just firms my resolve to take at least a week off around Christmas next year so that I can do all the things that I wanted to do this year, but didn't have enough time to.

Here's hoping that you all enjoyed your holiday break and had a great time with friends, family, and those wonderful pooches in your lives!!