Hanging Like Mistletoe That's STILL Out

I realize I left you hanging with the woeful tales that make up my holidays :)

Okay, so Christmas ended up better than I thought. The in-laws were surprisingly...nice? Fairly friendly? Not so egotistical? I'm not quite sure the words to describe it.

"We" got up--and by that I mean I got Hubby out of bed at 0700 like a child, because, let's face it, I'd been up for hours by myself, working myself into a tizzy over the drama I was sure would ensue. So after a hundred rounds of "are you sure I can go with you to your parents at 1000?," I got my rear end in the car, and we went. Sure enough, there was a place set for me at the table--although I had been convinced that they would be shocked to see me there. We had a nice breakfast, opened gifts, and played games. It was very mellow, especially for an in-law gathering. And that was all I saw of them...and possibly all I see of them until next Christmas. No joke. Hubby had all the time off from Christmas through New Year's Day, and he saw them every day while siblings-in-law were here, and that seemed to satisfy him. He's actually going up to in-laws' house today to work on the car, so he's seeing them before Christmas '08 :)

I haven't really had time to digest the holidays, but obviously I'm in a better mood, despite working every stinking day (ok, so I did get a whole 30 hours off last weekend) and being icky-sicky for the past week plus. However, DT-day is approaching this weekend, and that's when I consider the holidays truly over.

DT-day is of course Downing the Tree day. It's when I force myself to locate all the ornament packages and storage containers and strip the tree of it's glory until next Thanksgiving. We have a new tree this year, so we no longer have to take down the lights. And we bought new ornaments and gave away lots of old ones, so there's not supposed to be as many. The tree comes down on the 12th day of Christmas, unless I can come up with a better excuse to be lazy. One year I got lucky and Hubby did it all for me...but to let that happen again--that would be wrong, right?