Christmas Day 2006

Ah, Christmas is over … well, not over, but it’s the inevitable “let-down” already, not that it’s just now started … it’s been so for awhile. What is the “Christmas Let-down”? It is: After opening presents, spirits eventually fall to a lower level. It’s different depending on the year, who’s there, what was gotten under the tree, etc.

Basically for us, we spend Christmas together, immediate family only, that’s Hubby, Me and our three children. So there are no visitors and it’s “just the regular us” together.

The anticipation for the gift opening part of the day is usually high, and was quite so this year for the children. We take things in order, having a time announce to sit on the floor around the tree and then gifts are passed out by Daddy or Mama, or both, in stages, and then only opened when we say, “go ahead” or something similar of an idea. This keeps everyone watching and seeing what is what and just keeps the peace overall, and doesn’t detract from excitement one itty bit.

I myself recieved something I’ve wanted for over a year, an i-Dog … a white one. I wanted a black one, ever since they came out with it more recently. A black one is spiffier looking, to me, and goes with my HP laptop nicely, as well as my Sansa e260 (mp3 player) both being black devices.

Hubby often lets our daughter in on what he get for me, and lets her help wrap sometimes. He said that when he showed it to her this morning (when he finally wrapped my presents) she said, ‘Mama wants a black one.’ 🙂

So I do have a return to do, to replace white for black. Unfortunately hubby then told me that there was something called an i-Cat too now, but that the store where he got the i-Dog and had had the i-Cat was out of them and so were their closest other stores. He thought I might like it better, so holding out for it would be good … I looked it up online and found an article from Feb. ’06 about it coming out in the Fall, and new colors for the i-Dog as well. I have seen the new i-Dog colors in several stores, but no where did I notice an i-Cat.

The article seemed to show it as “white” like the original i-Dog, with no other colors. It sounds like something cool, the i-Cat, but in white, that’s not for sure what I want, though it could be cooler than the i-Dog in some ways, or many ways, me being a total cat person. I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see the i-Cat physically and can see it in action.

We got a Sansa m230 for each of the two oldest children. I had trouble with my Audible Manager when I tried to use the new ones. I ended up finding a reference to a similar problem with a different device on their website help, and found that it solved my problem to follow the directions. Basically deleting a ‘content’ file in the Bin folder for Audible in Program Files. [the file being corrupt, deleting it, then starting Audible Manager, the program asks you about the file, and choosing the option there to “create new” is the right thing to do. Then one needs to make all their audible audio files imported anew into the Audible Manager library.]

Once I did that it was like magic, I was able to move things onto my own Sansa m230 again (why the file corrupted right then, when I had something new to do, don’t ask me. It worked ), and also easily got the two new ones friendly with Audible and filling up with Eragon (though there is plenty of room for other books, or music even.) The m230’s are a 512mb device, nothing huge, just have it for ‘Audible’ audio books mainly.

DH got me a football too. It’s not just for me, really, but I am the one that wanted it. It’s a Junior sized ball, easier for the whole family, only DH has big hands.

Other things were opened, but I won’t go over everything. A tradition we started a few years ago when Peter Pan came out on Christmas Day was to go to a movie on Christmas Day afternoon, something new, family fair. This year we are going to see ‘A Night in the Museum’ in Imax format. We’re leaving soon. We would have gone earlier, but Imax showings of this film aren’t starting until 5pm-ish.

So I’ve got to go get my boots on and get ready otherwise. I took a short nap in the middle of writing this post, so hopefully it all makes sense. 🙂