I'll be home for Christmas

Saturday, December 22nd, I drove home to philly right after work.  Other than being exhausted  it was one of the smoothest drives I've ever had.  There was no snow, no rain, no slick roads, no construction, just smooth sailing!  I made it home by about 7:30 am and then slept till 11.  I spent the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out with family.

Sunday evening Grandma threw a big family dinner.  Everyone was there!  Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandparents and parents were all in attendance!

While I was there it was a bit too crowded to get any good pictures on just the 'rents and I, so waited till we got home to take a picture:

Cousin Mara then dropped by to give me a scarf she had made!  It looked so cute I had to take a picture:

Mom mentioned we should play pinochle.  We played, and, of course Dad won.  

I took advantage of his good mood and asked for some homemade hot chocolate.  It was  SOOO good.  He made it with real chocolate bars:

He also added home made whipped cream on top.  It was AH-MAZING.  Seriously, I have the best dad!

The next day, Dad came home after grocery shopping with a mighty fine brand of pudding:

He then said "why are you taking pictures of the pudding??!" 

My Cousin Mara, her hubby Zach and I all went to see the hobbit in 3D.  My dad paid for it (and lunch afterwords).  Did I mention I have the best dad ever?  True story.

The movie was good, although it probably would have been better if I had realized it was part 1 of 3!  Sigh.  The book was good, but I don't think they needed to make it a 3 parter.  Over all a solid 3.5 stars out of 5!

For Christmas eve, Joel's girlfriend Kate came over and brought gifts!!  I got a "make your own zombie" kit and some Doctor Who pins (SQUEEEEE):

We then all played Bandu, a stacking game:

I lost 2 games...

but rallied, and  won 3 games...so I was the ultimate winner!  YAY ME! (note that I'm wearing the awesome Doctor Who buttons Kate got me!!)

Christmas morning rolled around way too early.  Dad made pancakes and waffles for us and grandman/grandpa...then I was time for presents!!  Yesterday, Joel and I had taken the santa's from the window:

and them wrapped them up up and wrote "SANTA" on the package, so, come christmas morning, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa all went to open presents that they thought were from santa...but were ACTUALLY Santa!!  HAHAHAHAHA.  Pure winning!

I got a bunch of gifts, so I won't list them all here (I'll put them all on FB), but I got a bunch of zombie paraphanalia from Joel:

A fire extinguisher and crystal set (both of which I forgot to take back to Ohio with me, argh!):

And, a book called Star Babies.  I feel like I need to be tripping acid to fully comprehend this book.  Below is a page from star babies.  Almost all of the pages are this trippy:

The drive back to Ohio on christmas was uneventful.  Again, no rain/snow/construction.  I hope you all had as good a holiday as I did!