Had had a rare Christmas week off the year, something that will only happen once a decade or so.  Since she could travel this year, we decided to head down to her parents’ house in Corpus Christi for Christmas for a change.  The girls will stay on in Corpus for a few more days of their winter break before heading back home to Austin next week.

In Corpus, we had Kit’s parents, Kit’s uncle Bob, and my parents.  We had a great, slow Christmas day with the whole family.  We stuffed ourselves on ham, green beans, salad, and pecan pie.  We watched Home Alone and sat around chatting while the kids played.  It was a good day.  People were curious and excited about my new job at Whole Foods.  We also headed down to Corpus Christi waterfront for a sunny afternoon walk and to let Molly try her Plasma Car on a big, wide sidewalk.

We also got to visit our friends, the Carroll’s.  The highlight of that visit was Claire and Ze doing a “science experiment” from one of their Christmas presents  in the Carroll’s bathroom.  They overdid an ingredient from the experiment and clogged the bathroom sink, left a mess on the hall carpet, and ruined some bathroom towels.  We were concerned that the kids might have gotten some science goop in their eyes or mouths, but it turned out alright.

 

This year, with Kit working 70-hour weeks leading up to Christmas, and me starting my new job the week before Christmas, we were overwhelmed and frankly almost did not get all the presents we needed.  We just eeked it out this year!  Basically Kit and I need up with a two-hour window on the Sunday before Christmas to focus on shopping.  We had between 3:00, when Kit was done with her work, and 5:00, when the babysitter had to leave, to talk and shop.  This was not for lack of planning.  Kit and I had been trying to do this since Thanksgiving, but we barely had time to talk about it, much less actually shop, at least when Kit was in a state where she could spare the brain cycle for it.

Anyways, Santa managed to find Claire a remote controlled indoor/door min-drone.  It is a quadra-copter about the size of your palm, and with practice, you can fly it around the house.  It was a tough start, getting hung up on the ceiling at first and later getting tangled up in Muffin’s tail hair.  But Claire started to get a hang of it with practice.  Santa gave Molly a Plasma Car, which is a 4-wheeled scooter you can ride around the house or a sidewalk.  It was a perfect fit for Molly, and she spent most of Christmas day wheeling around the house.

The pile of presents from each other was huge and sweet.  A highlight was a hand-made book telling the history of everyone in our family, both Purdy’s and McGonigle’s.  It was meant for Claire and Molly to have and read decades from now, but we all got a copy of this amazing book.  There were lots of other presents, everything from Playmobil sets to fitness bands to the Claire & Molly annual art calendar that I normally make.

The morning after Christmas, the girls and Kit stayed back in Corpus while I headed home to my new job and to try to restore some sanity to the tornado scene that is our house.