Christmas Eve...

Well, it is eleven o'clock at night and I should be, and would rather be, sleeping, but instead I am awake playing Santa. Actually, my husband is, and I am watching the online content for my Winter term classes at HPU, but it still feels like I am involved with the whole Santa-thing.

Christmas Eve was nice. I didn't get to deliver the cookies I had baked; we are going to do that tomorrow afternoon. But I did get to host a small dinner (7 last-minute additions to the guestlist). Because I waited until yesterday to go grocery shopping, it took going to 3 grocery stores to find a ham to cook (my husband's idea). And when I finally found one at the Navy Commissary, it was the LAST one. And it was H-U-G-E!!! I had planned on dinner consisting of myself, my husband, my two boys, and a single sailor. A 6-8 pound ham should have done it. But nope, because I procrastinated, I got stuck with an almost-17-pounder! Thankfully, my neighbors, one of their friends and another sailor who was alone, were all generous enough to come help me not be eating ham every night for the rest of the year. The menu consisted of a cranberry/pecan/bluecheese salad, brandy-glazed ham, a cheesy cauliflower, artichoke, and red pepper casserole, steamed baby carrots, and smashed red potatoes, buttery rolls, and cookies. Dinner went well considering the extra 7 people, I just wish I had made more dessert. Tomorrow we make a cake for Baby Jesus, but tonight it was just cookies. I should have made a cheesecake. I have enough cream cheese in the house, and I could have made a crust out of ginger snaps. I hate when I start analyzing things too much and start obsessing over the shoulda/woulda/coulda. Stopping that right now.

Chad decided after the boys were in bed that we should exchange gifts now. He is so impatient with things like that. Anyway, he got me a gorgeous golden pearl pendant necklace from Maui Divers Jewelry. The chain is equally gorgeous. He always picks out beautiful jewelry! I gave him a small HD-video recorder. Not really his present, but I thought he might enjoy videotaping the boys in the morning. Originally, my plan was to have him go through his stocking first and see the green and red Swedish fish (his favorite), a special blend Starbucks coffee, and some other random things that I would have bought regardless. I would have acted like I felt badly that our gifts were not on the same level, and then when he thought I was really feeling badly, I would give him his big gift, a PSP-to go thingy that I picked up. He loves video games, and we only have one TV in the house, and sometimes I don't want to watch him playing video games. Call me crazy... So I thought this would be a gift to both of us. I get to play Wii with the kids on the TV, and he can play his games. Plus, on the off-chance that his ship actually gets underway for more than half-a-day, he will have some portable entertainment. He has the old PSP, but this one works with the Playstation network so that you can download content and not have to keep track of cartridges. So instead of screwing with his head, but without letting him open all his gifts early, I gave him the video camera instead. He was a little confused at first, and thought I bought him a new cell phone, but he figured it out and it is charging now, and will be ready to videotape Christmas morning...