Christmas Miles 145 - 156: The North Side

On Christmas morning we packed the car and headed to my sister's house.  A mere 12 miles away, this was by far the easiest drive of the trip.  We had already exchanged our gifts the night before, and my family had carted away the larger gifts that were going to be opened this morning, and yet we still had a packed car.  So much so that Murphy had to sit on my lap, which he was absolutely thrilled to do.

For some reason I forgot to take pictures of this morning, but that is not to say that it wasn't a great time.

Dave received his brand-spanking new laptop, which was a joint gift from me, my parents, my older sister, and Dave's mom.  He was very excited about it, and thrilled at the level of coordination required on my part to keep it a surprise.

Let me explain.

You see, Dave had a list of "wants" that weren't particularly exciting.  However, I wanted him to get the things that he needed, while also getting a few surprises (I love surprises, and apparently I think that other people should too.)  So, I coordinated the joint laptop among everyone so that they could still buy him a little something else.  I also had it shipped to my place of employment instead of at home, so that he wouldn't see it in the driveway (since he is usually the first one home.)  Even then, I still told him not to look at the boxes of the gifts that were delivered, to keep him on his toes, and since I was coordinated the gifts for ALL of our family members - mine and his.  All he had to worry about was a gift for me (which I'm pretty sure he still struggled with.)

The other gift that took some significant coordination was a filing cabinet that his Dad and step-mom ordered for him. Since it was a big gift, they had it shipped to our house, but that meant that I had to be home to accept the delivery.  It was being delivered by a full-sized tractor trailer, which is ridiculous in itself.  Furthermore, I had to coordinate the delivery on my cell phone while in the car with him on the way to his brother's wedding.  Fortunately I had that following Monday off already and was able to be there (even though it arrived 3 hours later than the 4 hour window that they had given me - I literally wasted an entire day off waiting around for this thing.)

Anyway, the delivery guy parked his 18-wheeler in the middle of our road, lugged this enormous thing up the driveway and pushed it in the back of our garage.  I promptly covered it with a sheet, put a "Dave - stay away!" sign on it and pushed a lot of crap in front of it.  He was intrigued but stayed away, and I don't think that he ever guessed what it was.

So anyway, we had a good Christmas. In addition to the laptop, Dave received a sweater, a pair of jeans, a snorkel set for our Mexico trip (which I also received), some stocking stuffers and a 4-waffle iron.   I got a new black pea coat, jeans, two sweaters, a heart-rate monitor, snorkel set, and an I-pod nano! We definitely made out.

But two and a half hours after arriving at my sister's, we had to leave Murphy behind with my mom and head on to the next leg of our journey - Wilmington, DE.