It's the holidays
With trees and snow and cookies
And lots of gifts . . .

A Photorecord of Christmas 2003

Introduction:  Most of my mom's side of the family gathers on Christmas, in various combinations and permutations.  I hold the record for "farthest person who makes it back."  Most of the 6-hour drive is in the dark, but I do get to watch pretty sunsets for awhile.

They kind of make up for the traffic and the busy gas stations.

I put up a new section of sunsets from this trip here.

Christmas Eve is held at my parents' house with my immediate family.  We open presents after supper (I was late this year . . . oops).

Before presents, though, we take the annual
family pictures in front of the fireplace.
Let's see if we can get organized.

Nope.

There we go.  Except my brother left his hat on.

My dad isn't really that short.  He misunderstood the instructions and he's sitting while my brother and I are kneeling.

There's his full height.

This is way too many presents . . .

Before the presents, though, I had a "special presentation" for my mom (at the word "presentation," my brother wanted to know who was retiring).  For years my mother went ornament hunting every year and found a new ornament for each one of us (I'd get a computer, my brother would get a hunter, etc.)  Last year we didn't get ornaments and I asked why.  She said she didn't think people were appreciating them.  So . . .

This year I bought my mom an ornament for each ornament she'd bought me.

I painted this wrestler ornament with my high school's colors (you can sort of see the "GC" on his chest, too).  My mom said this was her favorite gift.

Merry Christmas, mom.

Okay, presentation out of the way, time to open presents.
Jeff is ready.

My mom got an Elvis nightgown from Linde.   (My mom is a big Elvis fan.)

Smile Linde.

Busily unwrapping.

My dad bought Haley a 55-gallon aquarium.
He got a new leather jacket.  Go dad.

My grandmother joined us in the treasure haul.

It's becoming a tradition that any present that someone requests that no one else can find is assigned to me (since I have eBay and the Internet).  This year my grandmother wanted a rooster cutting board and no one could find one.  So guess what my grandmother got from me.  :)

Presents are unwrapped, wrapping paper and gifts are scattered everywhere, time to wrestle on the living room floor.