Tidings of comfort and joy

Paul and I will be going to Texas tomorrow to visit my family for the holidays. We'd hoped to go to Kansas to see Paul's grandfather but since his parents are only staying until Saturday, we're going to postpone that trip until later in the year. Hopefully, it will be much warmer during that trip than it currently is. I think this year's trip will be a little less hectic than in years past. We're planning on staying put at one house per day on this trip rather than trying to go back and forth between the various grandparents, feeling a little ragged and never like we get to visit with anyone long enough.Today, I finished the final cards I needed to send--last year we ordered 100 cards and I thought it was too many. This year, I only ordered 75 and it wasn't enough. I guess the magic number is some place in between although I think I'll stick with ordering more. I can always find someone to send a card to but I feel a little bad that I couldn't send cards to some friend. I don't know if people will really miss the annual picture of Carrie and Paul but I like that we at least have the once-a-year correspondence with friends. And I like that my husband has a homing device for finding his way into my otherwise-arty pictures.
Since we aren't going to be home on Christmas, as is our tradition, Paul and I opened up presents tonight after eating burritos from Golden Pride. We both like breakfast for dinner and breakfast burritos definitely fall into that category. A friend of Paul's from high school sent him a book entitled "The Truth about Chuck Norris: 400 Facts about the World's Greatest Human." I think all of them have been made into flair on Facebook but it is pretty funny. I wasn't going to spend any money on something for the cat this year. Granted, I normally spend less than $10 on a gift for him but since he normally plays with the gift for five minutes and then ignores it for the rest of the year, I don't exactly think it's money well spent. When I picked up food for him this afternoon, I broke down and got a little something for him. Considering he's already played with this one longer than any other gift we've gotten him, perhaps we have a winner. There's a puffball/feather on the end of the string; not sure what this move was all about but he stayed like this for a good minute, plotting his next attack. I think this was the most active we've seen him in years. Maybe he won't lose total interest in this toy.
I normally buy myself little gifts and wrap them up with tags to me from Jub or from Paul. Paul isn't that great at gift selection and I appreciate that it's not one of his strengths. He's a good man in many respects but not so much when it comes to buying presents. This year, I hadn't gotten much for myself--just haven't been in the mood--and Paul noticed that he had much more than I did under the tree. I don't mind--it's not as if I don't get stuff throughout the year. Plus, I figured between the kitchen countertops and graduate school, I've pretty much spent all my present money for a LONG time. But when Paul asked what I wanted last week, I gave him what I thought was a fairly nonsensical list of items: cowboy boots, pearl necklace, a couple of other things that I can't even remember now. He pondered for a while and said that he liked the idea of boots; we should go buy me new boots. I said OK and thought we might go do that over the weekend or after Christmas. On Saturday, Paul came downstairs and said that he thought a pearl necklace would be a better idea. I said OK but do you know how much that costs? I suggested he visit the jewelry store that we've gone to for the two other pieces of "good" jewelry that I own (wedding ring and 5th anniversary/30th birthday ring) because that would be the easiest place to go, he'd been there before, etc. I told him this thinking he would just continue with his business and forget that idea altogether.

We continued about our Saturday, getting ready for the party, piddling around doing nothing, plotting our afternoon before we went to his parents' house. While we were making our To Do list (yes, labeled and with approximate times on it so that we'd stay on time), Paul said that we needed to include the jewelry store. I got to open these up tonight:

I should have gussied up more because I knew I was going to open this gift but there you go. The most beautiful strand of pearls. The salesperson in the store was no fool--she started with the highest quality "because these are already strung." Of course I loved them but would have been happier with the lesser quality, smaller, not yet strung pearls as well. I left the decision up to Paul and that's what I got. Beautiful, round, pink overtones, 7-7.5 mm in size, 18" long--an "investment" piece of jewelry and much, much more than I ever expected. I kept telling Paul that I would have been happy with boots but I'm beyond thrilled with my generous husband. And I take back most of my grumbling about his strange gifts throughout the past 13 years. I think he's totally made up for it.

I hope everyone finds a little (or big) treat with their name under the Christmas tree this year and has a very Merry Christmas, indeed.