SNOW DAYS! In Raleigh 3 inches of snow = 2 days off school and potentially a late start on a third day. I am down with that...my 3 day weekend because of MLK has become a 5 day vacation. I worked on photo albums, read graphic novels, opened the door to look at the snow, and came inside because it is too cold. I am a weather wuss. My neighbor built a snowman but other than him I didn't see many kids out playing in the only snow we will probably get this year. By the way my neighbor is an adult, and he built his snowman and put a beer in his hand. cool... I would have helped but I am a weather wuss...

A fun, old fashioned, family Christmas

Day one:  Steam clean the carpets, wait for them to dry, put up the aluminum Christmas tree, decorate it, carefully pick up the aluminum needles that have fallen off the branches and try to stick them back on.

Day two:  Spend all day cleaning the guest bedroom and the office so that someone can actually sleep in the office, wrap all presents for guests, begin the endless laundry of sheets, blankets, and towels for guests to use, make-up the bed in the guest room, put holiday decorations in guest room, vacume the carpet in the guest room, take out the trash in the guest room, close guest room door and call it good enough, string lights on outside bushes, hang wreath on door, set up the nativity set in foyer, (does it count as a foyer if it is less than the size of the walk-in closet). 

Day three:  Power clean the guest bathroom, kitchen, basement, liter pan, other liter pan, other liter pan, 4th liter pan, 5th liter pan, throw away the liter pan that broke when it was tossed outside, go to the dollar store and buy another liter pan, fill that liter pan, day two of the endless laundry, go to Southern States and buy another poinsettia because the last one only has three red petals left, guests arrive at 5:00pm just as the dust pan is put away.  Get the furniture mover out and help the guests unload the car.  Make fried chicken, eat fried chicken, watch Monday night football, learn that the company loves only NFL football and Penn State not ALL  football games so we wont have to watch football all vacation long. 

Day four:  Leave house at the crack of dawn to do final shopping, meet at BJ's for Christmas dinner shopping, avert disaster of a second trip to Sam's, (more than one big box shopping trip two days before Christmas could kill you), escape to the gym to work-out, escape to the dump to take some of the endless garbage and recycling, escape to the basement to entertain the cats while company entertains themselves, go to Bob's barbeque for take-put because company has never had it before, eat barbeque, further regale the company with stories of previous fun old fashioned family Christmases, watch Borat, spend the next 10 days watching others talk like Borat.

Day five: Leave house at crack of dawn to do final shopping for Christmas eve dinner and Christmas day dinner, avert disasterous fight over cookie baking, complete "Christmas baking" by baking brownies, take a long walk around the neighborhood, find the foreclosure notice on the door of the unoccupied house down the block and take unseasonable joy in the problems of the local builder/incompetent buisness man who can't make the only bar in town successful, talk to family on the phone, make shrimp and grits for Christmas eve dinner, eat shrimp and grits, watch It's a Wonderful Life, fall asleep before it is over, wake up at midnight and remember I have to do more wrapping, wrap while watching A Christmas Story and talking to my sister who also has wrapping to do, get to bed by 2:30am. 

Day six:  It is finally Christmas day!  Start the day with breakfast with the family, fascilitate the move of the guests from the guest bedroom to the computer room so the new guests can have the guest bedroom, (family politics and the squeaky wheel syndrome demand this move), wash the sheets and towels for the next guests, vacume upstairs, vacume downstairs, wait for guests, new company arrives, unload new company,  make mimosas, drink mimosas, open presents, ooh and ahh over presents, set out snacks, take a walk with old company while new company takes a nap, put the ham in the oven, work with the guests to prepare the rest of the dinner, eat the dinner, wash all the dinner dishes, put away dinner left-overs, 

Day seven:  Make breakfast for the whole family, take showers, go to the movies, watch Marley and Me with the new company while the old company watches a different movie, of course Marley dies at the end of the movie, chit chat about movies, go to Hooters for a wing dinner,  (it is the first time at Hooters for old company), eat wings, drink beer, drive home, watch Batman Returns, fall in to bed. 

Day eight:  Old company gets up before the crack of dawn and leaves without a dramatic goodbye, new company gets up slowly, drinks coffee and eats cookies for breakfast, goes to Raleigh for lunch at Char-Grill, buy materials for dinner, buy materials for project, (now we have a peep hole in the front door), grill steaks, eat steaks, watch  The Dark Knight, off to bed.

Day nine:  New company likes to sleep in, wakes up slowly over coffee and cookies, reads the paper, has real breakfast, loafs, watches football game on the computer because the game they care about (Ravens) isn't on television, make pot roast for dinner, (the real reason the new guests have stayed an additional night I suspect), eat pot roast, play my new game they gave me (Scene It), play three games everyone wins but me, go to bed. 

Day ten:  New company must go home today but we all decide to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Henderson, say good bye after breakfast, go to Wal-Mart for after Christmas decoration sales, go to Lowes for same reason, go home to loaf and revel in success of good old fashioned family Christmas.