Christmas Presents!!!

We wound up opening gifts saturday night, sort of a last minute decision. We had  times set up to open gifts with other people and at other places, but for some reason we had never really set a date for ourselves this year. See, we don’t like to do gifts on the 25th, we like to focus that day on Christ’s birth, and it’s hard to do that if all you can think about are presents. I had been planning on going out after we’d all gone to a family dinner, but Nicole was so wired already we figured may as well. Above you can see that I did a good job – Chris is one of those folks who are impressed more by the thought than anything else. Curse him. I got him some ‘really stupid’ computer games and he was pretty psyched. (He and I have vastly different taste in computer/video games, and we affectionately refer to each others’ as ‘really stupid.’ Like, “I thought it looked really stupid, so I knew you’d love it.”)

Nicole started off being her usual enthusiastic and polite self. “A present? For ME?! THANK YOU!!!" I LOVE IT!” 

After we’d all opened a gift she got so excited about the opening that she just wanted to open everyone’s gifts. She didn’t even care what was inside! Well, except the Little People House, that she was pretty psyched about.

(try to disregard my horsey facial expression above. I must have been whinnying with joy or something.)

My gifts from Chris were all fitness gifts! A Wii Fit Accessory kit, and Your Shape for Wii. It’s a fast-paced workout that I would classify as definite cross-training. Cardio, strength, yoga, yadda yadda. I’ve done it three times now and I would say that it will likely produce results, all the pieces are there. If you pick it up and do it regularly, you must be eating pure lard if you don’t notice a difference within a few weeks. Also, whatever it is that Jenny is doing on the front of the box, you are not required to do that. So don’t panic.

Afterwards, I cleaned up wrapping paper and read the manual for my new game while Chris and Nicole colored in her new ginormous coloring book. (That, by the way, is the one downer about the Wii. If you’re anything like me, you like to up the anticipation by reading manuals for things cover-to-cover all excited-like, as if they’re some sexy romance novel or the flyers. However, Wii games tend to be so “Uh, durr” intuitive that there’s rarely anything in them… sigh. I remember the days of my youth when I could spend a good half-hour reading a nice Legend of Zelda instruction manual…)

All in all, it was a very nice little impromptu family night. I’m looking forwards to the traditional Christmas Eve gathering at my parents, where we will do a gift exchange. I’m looking forwards to watching Nicole “in her element.” She tends to be the delegated Christmas-present-distributor, as well as the assistant-unwrapper. As the only Small Person in MY extended family right now (well the only one we have access to) she is the star of the show, and she loves every minute of it.