24 Hours of Christmas

 I did a Christmas marathon!   

I somehow got everything together at home, with the cats, and all my other responsibilities, to leave by noon and head south to see my brother and his family.

Three hour drive down.  Went fast.   The first two hours are all freeway.  Not much traffic.  Then I cut off the freeway to head west through the coast range for an hour, to get there.

I got there and, stiff from the long drive, hobbled around a bit, then we all laid out in various chairs and on couches, chatted for an hour or two before we had Christmas Eve fondue, a tradition there.   Afterwards we cleaned up in the kitchen, then tried to find something to watch on TV, but everyone was falling asleep, me included.   Off to bed.

Next morning I got to see my nephew's house.   I'd only seen it when in the process of being built.  He built it along with help from my brother.   It's a nice house, modern design, with lots of windows, which is something I like.   We crammed into my brothers Bronco or some car like a Bronco to drive over.  I'm very bad at knowing car makes and models.   It really is meant for four people but we crammed in five somehow.

It's big, is all I can say, and pretty on the outside.

The tires seemed like they came nearly to my waist.

I bet a tire for that, if you blew one, would cost a fortune to replace.

We had breakfast there at my nephews place--waffles with syrup, blueberries, strawberries, grapes and bananas, along with peanut butter, to add.   

Ellie, my grand niece and four years old, showed me the house, and we played some games, made play dough figures, then smashed them.   She's fun.

Then it was back to my brother's house.   Crammed into his car again like sardines.

Christmas dinner was about 4:00 and since all are vegetarians, it was vegetables.  Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli, green beans, salad.   I love vegetables of all kinds.   Stuffed olives too.

Then I drove home.  I had been watching the weather report since we're having severe rain and bad wind had been predicted but there was very little of either on the drive home.  Some buffeting of the car by wind in places.  Nothing bad.  The weather worsened once I got home.  The rain came down in buckets and the wind gusts took out power in many places.   I didn't worry about the loud wind noise.  I was too tired. Next many days will be nothing but more rain, too.

I had a lot of litter boxes to clean when I got home, so I did not get to bed early and slept in to make up for my 24 hour Christmas extravaganza.   The marathon was worth it.

Today, I took down the remains of the tree.  They'd really gone at it while I was away.  Had a grand old time doing it, looked like.   Very few ornaments were still on the mostly collapsed tree.   It was still standing but 80% of the fake branches had collapsed.

So long Christmas.   

Tree gone.  I even rearranged the cat furniture and litter box hiders.  They are very very upset with me.