Waiting for the relations

[mellicious]

 I love this icon with the tree. I think that may be my very favorite thing about Christmas - the lights. I'm such a kid inside.

The influx of relatives has not begun yet, so it's relatively peaceful here. Brittany did come by for a little while, to leave presents, and she'll be back later. Layla (16 months old) was with her - I hadn't seen her since May and Rob hadn't seen her since last year - and she is now afraid of Rob. Linda thinks it's the beard. (Linda is Layla's great-grandmother, which seems incredible to me. I think LInda is 65, that is awfully young for that!) Last year Layla was fearless, and she'd let anybody hold her. But she was four months old then, that's a very different age. This year another cousin has another four-month-old baby who we haven't seen yet, a boy. They named him George - which is a name that's been so out-of-fashion I suspect it's about to be in again. In our case it's a family name, anyway. And presumably baby George and his family will be descending on us any minute now, as well as assorted other cousins.

I thought I would really be missing my mother at Christmas - she loved Christmas - but so far it hasn't bothered me as much as I thought. Actually that seems to be the pattern: the times I worry ahead of time will bother me don't, so much. It's the ones that sneak up on me that kill me.

Linda hadn't bought a gift for Rob because she said she didn't know what to buy, and I thought he would be happiest if he picked out his own gift (is that strange? I'm kinda the same way) so we went to Half-Price Books and bought him a whole little pile of things with Linda's money. Of course I ended up with several more things for myself. For one thing, they had the next C.J. Cherryh book in that series I've been reading for months. It was hardback but it was cheaper than a new paperback would be, so I went ahead and bought it. And I bought a little spiral-bound journal to take to Las Vegas so I'd have something to write in. If I can't write online, I like to at least write offline!

Then we went in Kroger's and bought a pumpkin pie, which we had promised to buy, and also a small cake, because Rob decided he wanted one. Somebody better eat it because we sure can't take the leftovers home with us! (But I'm sure they will.) And I bought Linda a gift certificate from Macy's - Kroger's always has them - because I never had come up with a better gift. I should've gone and gotten her one at the quilt store, probably, but she does like to shop for clothes sometimes so I was thinking that might be just as good. I don't know. I always second-guess myself too much about these things.

I might sneak in another entry tonight, if I have anything new to say. Tomorrow will probably be chaos, what with the gifts and the dinner and then the flying and all!