santa arrived very early in the day
Saturdays are for sleeping in. On Saturdays, I don’t care if I ever see the morning sunlight. Christmas Saturday, however, is for getting up at 8:15 am at the insistence of my 12-year-old nephew. Ben labored for about half an hour making sure everyone actually got out of bed. I threw on a pot of coffee, but it wasn’t quite ready before we were herded into the family room to open our gifts. But it was fun!
Because of the snowstorm in the Midwest, the ipods Maureen and Jeff got for Kate and Ben didn’t make it—the were finally sent on from Indianapolis and got to East Boston—but there they’ll sit until Monday. Maureen gave them cards with pictures of mini ipods in them—it took a while for it to click with Ben that they would actually be getting them. He thought the picture was a tease—god forbid he would actually read what was written on a card [laughing].
Everybody seemed pretty happy with all of the presents, even the dogs. Stanley took photos while Ben passed out the gifts—here are three of them. I will get the others up sooner or later.

Ben, Kate, Jeff, and Maureen
The animals were not excluded. Tattoo loved his present. And Ginger’s present too:

Twitch couldn’t quite figure out what all the commotion was about. He sneered at the dogs from beneath the tree after dismissing his toy, a Hilary chew toy, because it had too much dog spit on it.

It’s time for dinner in ten minutes!
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