Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Our "American" Christmas

I've mentioned before that the Irishman and I celebrate Christmas twice. Because we are in Ireland for the "real" Christmas, we pick a day to exchange gifts with each other before we leave. We usually pick a morning, but this year we were waiting on packages in the mail so we picked the Friday night before we left as "American" Christmas.

Now, if you know us well you know that we are always running late challenged by time limits. With as much traveling as we do, you would think we would have the whole packing thing down by now. Not quite.

The Irishman had a party after work on "American" Christmas. I'd stayed at school late to get things ready for January (knowing that I will be exhausted and playing catch up anyway when we get back). I then ran to the mall to re-buy a gift for one of the Irishman's sisters. He did SUCH a good job of throwing her off track about what we bought her that she went out and BOUGHT HERSELF the gift we'd picked out.

Anyway, my quick trip to the mall was anything but quick as I finally found an outfit to wear for Christmas night in Ireland. I'd been looking for weeks, but then the night before we leave with no time to spare I have luck in the sales. Sounds about right, huh?

We finally got home at about 8:00pm. We had a shuttle scheduled to take us to the airport at 4:30am. We still had to clean, pack, and celebrate "American" Christmas. Add to all that the fact that the Irishman used a Christmas bonus & his coaching paycheck to purchase an IPOD Touch for himself. (He had retained the option to purchase one during the previous cell phone negotiations.) So as I cleaned and packed, he downloaded songs and got his new toy ready to take with us.

It was a bit rough.

At about midnight we decided to take a break and exchange gifts. I did not have time to wrap his gifts...thank goodness for the Santa sacks!



We both went overboard again...but each managed to give a few surprises. Even though it was VERY late and we still had to finish packing, the Irishman decided to try out the Wii game I gave him. In the end we went to bed at 1:30...and got up at 3:30.

On the way to the airport, the Irishman surprised me with a box. It had a very pretty necklace it in. (I wore it on "Irish" Christmas...pictures to follow!) He is very good to me!

Next up...Irish Christmas!

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