Twas the Night/Day Before (Going Home for) Christmas

As I've made abundantly clear, I've got a lot of Christmas spirit this year. I mean, there's usually no shortage of cheer any holiday of the year for me, but this year I've been Christmas crazy for about a month now. And it's all culminating today.

Today was the first day of my Christmas vacation. Tomorrow morning I'll pack up and make the trip to Ohio to be with my family for the week. I am SO excited to see everyone - especially my brother, who I've only seen once since last Christmas! And I'm even more excited because Eric will be coming home with me this year! And, of course, Mr. Pancakes will come too. We'll all be together!

I spent today going to Alterra for some coffee and baked oatmeal (my favorite!), then went for a five-mile run in the slush outside. I just whipped up some butter cookie dough that's chilling, but you'll hear more about that in an upcoming post.

Oh, also, yes: The photo above does depict a puppet of Baby Sinclair from the show "Dinosaurs." And, yes, it is our tree topper this year. Don't judge.

Before we leave tomorrow, Eric and I will have "our" Christmas morning. We didn't really want to open our gifts to each other in front of my family Christmas morning, so we'll have an early Christmas tomorrow! Score!

These are my presents from Eric; he wrapped them WEEKS ago and they've been taunting me ever since! I have no idea what they are... but I must've been pretty good this year - they're big! 

And here are my gifts to Eric, minus one that I added later and forgot to include in the picture. I do know what these gifts are. I know he'll like them, because he's only been hinting, not so subtly, that he wants exactly these things for months now. They won't be a huge surprise, but at least I know he'll love them!

And here are all the gifts we've wrapped for both our families! We can't put them under the tree because someone (hint: he's fluffy and has whiskers) will tear them up and chew on them... So they're sitting so elegantly on our large windowsill by the tree.

I am so anxious to hit the road back home! I wish we could have left today, but Eric had to work. We'll get to my parents' house tomorrow afternoon, and I'm extra excited, because we've been promised my very favorite marinated pork chops from Winner's Meat Market for dinner!

I'll try to post while I'm at home, but I don't know how detailed I'll get - I have a BUSY schedule, including three family Christmases and squeezing in time to see my friends! It's going to be a fantastic Christmas