Like a kid at Chrsitmas

We had a really nice Christmas. Two of Madison's cousins spent the night on Christmas Eve. We woke them' up at about 7 to pack them into the car and drive them an hour to Grandma's, where the gift-opening production began. Opening gifts with my husband's family is an annual source of amusement for me. As opposed to what I became used to during my formative years, his family goes for quantity and elapsed time instead of quality or 'that personal touch'. Since his grandpa died about 10 years ago, the job of passing presents out from under the tree has become Spencer's. The children must all wait patiently as gifts are opened one at a time. The opener must announce who the gift is from, especially if it is from Great-Grandma, who sits in the corner and takes a mental tally of who bought what for whom.
This year the whole thing took two and a half hours. Even though everyone under 10 got a dollar-store gumball machine, they all needed to be opened one-at-a-time.
Surprisingly, I only got one scarf/hat/glove set. For the first time in a long time, I got lots of toys for Christmas. I must have been good. I got Band Hero, which I will share with my family since it isn't Solo Artist Hero. We played with it a little yesterday, and it is really fun. Way better than Guitar hero because there are not terrible noises when you miss a note. It turns out that we need another remote for the wii so that the three of us can play together, so we will go get that today and start rockin'.
My Dad came for dinner, we had prime rib and potatoes au gratin crab louis and steamer clams- but no crusty bread because there wasn't room in the oven. It was the first time I had ever roasted beef, so now the bar is set pretty high. Everything turned out really good, which may be a first- usually something is not-quite-right when I make a big holiday dinner.
After dinner, we went to the hotel where Dad is staying and sat in the hot tub, which was a really nice way to end a hectic but fun day. He gave us a wii fit plus, which I asked for. After we got home, we played with it a little before we went to bed, and it is fuh-un. There is a game where you are a bird and you have to flap your arms in order to fly from landing pad to landing pad. How does that little board know when our arms are flapping? I may never know the answer to this mystery, but it sure is fun.