We have an eventful three days ahead of us.  With all of our family living within walking distance, we are required by Familial Law to visit each and every one of them at least twice.  In the next three days.  Which is wonderful (honestly).  Our schedule for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day looks like this:

Christmas Eve

8:30 - 12 - I work (Boo.  Hiss.)

12:30 - Lunch at home with the Tornado and Anonymous Husband.

1 - 3:30 (fingers crossed) - The Tornado should be nestled all snug in her bed, while visions of Diego dance in her head.  Otherwise known as nap time.

4:00 (or earlier, if those crossed fingers don’t do what they’re meant to) - 7:30 - Christmas Eve with my side of the family at Casa Del Parents, during which time we will engorge ourselves on deep fried cheese sticks, chicken wings, shrimp rings (excluding those who will remain Anonymous and shellfish-free), and literally every other finger food you can think of.  Oooo…and my favourite Christmas savoury - bacon wrapped water chestnuts.  We’ll also do our gift exchange (yay, presents!).

Christmas Day

7:30 (again, fingers crossed) - 9:30ish - We’ll do our very first annual Tornado Alley Christmas morning (last year we were living with the Anonymous grandparents, waiting for our new house to be built).  We’ll open stockings and presents (!), have a light breakfast and get ready for the rest of the hectic day.

9:30ish - 1ish (toddler attitude-dependant) - This year we’re with AH’s family in the morning.  We’ll eat a traditional Irish fried breakfast (bacon, sausage, fried eggs, potato bread, black and white pudding, and clotted arteries in a pear tree) and our gift exchange with them (more presents!).

1:30 - 3:30ish - Naptime

4ish - 7:30 - Christmas dinner back with my family.  I can’t even express to you how excited I am for dinner.  I am literally vibrating right now at the thought of my mom’s stuffing and of gravy sandwiches.  Never heard of them?  Hmm…that’s weird.  Take a dinner roll, poke your finger almost all the way through, pour gravy in hole, consume.  And just try not to repeat.  I dare you.

Boxing Day

Oh, sometime in the afternoon - Christmas dinner with AH’s family.  This one I’m excited for because of dessert.  And second dessert.  And sometimes even third dessert.  Why bother with first course?

If I don’t come out of these next three days at least 15 pounds heavier, I’ve done something wrong.

And that will be us until the 28th, when Carly, Lucy and Eric come to visit and what else?  Exchange presents*!

So, from us here in Tornado Alley, have a very merry Christmas.  If that’s what you’re into.  If not, have a great few days anyway.

* Just for the record, I happen to be one of those people who quite honestly enjoys giving presents much, much more than receiving.  It’s my favourite.

** Also, just for the record.  Just because I like giving more than receiving doesn’t mean you have to take the presents back that you got for me.  Let’s not get crazy now.

Eirinn is a quirky kind of girl.  She has all kinds of them.  The usual toddler quirks like asking a ker-billion questions all in a row without waiting for an answer to any of them, or asking to get up, up, up then immediately asking to get down, down, down.  You know, the standards.

And in the past few weeks she’s started a few new things that can definitely be labelled “quirky”.  Anything that, when performed in front of a stranger, needs to be a) apologized for, or b) explained with eye-rolls, can be labelled as “quirky”.

New quirk #1 - “What’s that sound like?”

This one is certainly cute.  I don’t know where she got it from, but she wants to know what every little noise is.  It’s usually a truck, even if it isn’t.  If I don’t know what the sound was, I’ll say “I don’t know, what does it sound like?” and she’ll say “a truck” or “a digger truck”, because we live in an under-construction subdivision.

New quirk #2 - “…RIGHT NOW!”

This one?  Not so cute.  She has learned how to be demanding.  Not that she wasn’t demanding before, but now she knows how to verbalize it.  I don’t know who taught her this, but it isn’t funny.  “Have cookie, RIGHT NOW!”  “See Bugba, RIGHT NOW!” 

New quirk #3 - Two Ah-lankies

So she has these two fuzzy green blankets, two different ‘brands’.  First she liked the thin one best.  She carried this one around for about a year.  Then her and thin ah-lankie must have gotten into a fight or something because she didn’t like it anymore and she liked thick ah-lankie better.  Then thick ah-lankie was accidentally forgotten at Bugba’s house one night and thin ah-lankie had to act as a substitute.  She started calling thin ah-lankie “New Ah-lankie”, even though it was the older one.  Now she has to have both.  Everywhere she goes.  She drags both around like they were sewn to her palms.  Oh, and if you didn’t catch on, an ah-lankie is a blanket.

New quirk #4 - “I carry you?”

This means “Can you carry me?”, but she doesn’t have proper pronoun usage mastered yet.  That’s ok.  She’ll learn.

Because this:

This never happens.