My Not-So-Perfect Family Christmas Letter

Happy Holidays to all of you, friends and relatives. I was hoping to have the time to write each of you an individual note to put with each of your Christmas cards, but truth be told, I spent too much money on my new NASCAR tattoo and now don't have any money left for Christmas cards. (It is some awesome artwork…the track runs up one arm, across my back and down the other arm, and doesn't interfere at all with the Budweiser tattoo.) We are planning a busy holiday hoping to see everyone that expects to see us. We had planned to visit my family on the 25th and 26th, but I’ve got some of those pesky community service hours to work off on the 26th, so we’ll have to cut our visit short. We’ll spend our traditional Christmas Eve with Kelly’s family and my Mom in Garland, attending their Christmas Eve candlelight service, if we can keep Mom from hitting the eggnog too hard and embarrassing all us while at church. (Sorry to bring that up again, Mom, but your interpretive dancing last year, right in the middle of “Silent Night” didn’t go over that big.)

Kelly’s work has been going well. He’s been traveling a bunch and has enjoyed the work he’s been doing with some very talented people. I don’t want to give away too much, but some of you can expect a really nice Christmas gift sack packed full of toiletry items that he’s picked up along the way during his travels. I think you’ll find that the Anaheim Motel 6’s shampoo has a nice fruity smell and the lotion from the Fort Lauderdale Motor Lodge is really nice for winter-dried skin.

We are very proud of our little Blake. For a 2 year old, he’s really picking up on some advanced skills. I’ve found that I can sit him in front of the T.V. for about 10 hours a day and he’ll be still for about half of that time. Aren’t we lucky to have such a good babysitter as the TV?! I don’t know how people used to raise their children without one. He especially enjoys “Days of Our Lives” and is learning some good concepts about family and morality. We were hoping to get Blake into Little Gym this year, but we’ve realized we can do the same thing at home with a few 2 x 4’s and a big pile of leaves. So he’s developing his balance and tumbling skills at home. We are so proud of him.

I stay busy with the traditional “mom stuff”. I did take a month off from everything to spend some quality alone-time in Mexico. Parts of the trip are a little blurry for me but I can tell you that the horror stories about Mexican jails are a little overstated. I came home from my sabbatical to find the house had flooded and “OOPS”, I accidentally had let our homeowner’s insurance lapse. I think this whole mold thing is all hype anyhow…I’m sure we’ll all be fine.

Guess I’d better wrap up this letter and get back to wrapping the last packages. My neighbors are generously donating their newspapers for my wrapping paper, but I must run over and get it off their lawn very early in the morning. It’s so nice to live in such a great neighborhood!

Merry Christmas to all of you and may your favorite driver finish first in 2006! NASCAR rules!

The Morrisons