Christmas 2008 Roundup

It's over. All the gifts are opened. The relatives have been visited. The food has been eaten (or divided up and parceled out for leftovers, at least). Despite the exhaustion, it was a really good day, so I've decided to share some highlights:

My Family Behaved
Some of my family members (well, most of them) are known for their rather contentious personalities. They usually have at least one major dust-up during the holiday season. This year's came on Tuesday. I was not at all sure that it wouldn't continue today, but everyone behaved beautifully. We had a great dinner, and I laughed so much my face hurt.

The Husband Did a Beautiful Thing
My husband is an amateur photographer, and I think (no bias or anything) that he's pretty good. When we were with his family on Thanksgiving, he secretly took some photos of his brother's newborn daughter. He stayed up until 1 am this morning working on the photo, which was a tight close-up of her sweet little sleeping face, tinted in a really soft black and white. He printed it at 11x14, put it in a nice frame, and it was just beautiful. I could tell that Husband's brother and his wife were really touched. It was a nice moment.

We Have New Dog Toys
We love our dogs very much, but we don't really go overboard with "spoiling" them. They have sensitive tummies, so they don't get many varieties of treats. We don't give them new toys very often, because they can play happily with the shredded remnants of a toy for months. We have new toys for tonight, though. I think it's more fun for us than it is for the dogs.

Good Stuff to Watch
I got a boatload of good DVDS, not the least of which was TWO collections of Dirty Jobs episodes. That's hours and hours of Mike Rowe, to enjoy at my leisure. 'Nuff said.

Praline Cheesecake
I made the cheesecake, so I don't want to appear immodest. I think it's just a REALLY good recipe. This cheesecake is so awesome that I wanted to eat another piece, even though I felt like Monsieur Creosote already. I have leftovers, and it's probably a bad thing for me to be so excited about them.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I need to go wake the Husband up so that New Dog Toy Funtime can begin. Makes me wish we had a video camera.