Christmas Day in review.

1.  We arose danged early.  7:30 a.m., with no kids in sight.  That's because (a) it was snowing and (b) we were going to visit three households with grandchildren in them by noon or know the reason why.  

2.  I needed a shower, but I also needed breakfast.  It turns out that a morning containing both was infeasible (see 1 (a) and (b) above).  I showered and wolfed down a banana, which does not by any stretch of the imagination comprise a proper breakfast, in my opinion.  Did I say "wolfed"? I wolverined it.  

3.  Watching kids open presents and get excited about the tiniest little things (marshmallow Santa, tiny colored pencils, Groucho glasses, Slinky) is too fun to describe in words.

4.  The Salt Lake Valley was a weird patchy grid of micro-climates today--my environs was blizzardy, whereas on the bench, at least all the way till noon, it was merely cold and windy.  

5.  At home we had a packed agenda:  give presents to each other, call the Scotlands, cook food to take to the family dinner, shovel the walks, collapse.  Write some cards.  Collapse.  I had to delete the collapsing, though, because of the snow!  We needed to leave plenty of time to drive down to Utah Valley, because of the snow!  I'll collapse when I'm dead.

6.  Drove down on mostly not-too-bad roads, made good time, stuck cauliflower gratin (now, with chevre!) in oven, visited.  It was a great group--both my sisters, my kids and spouses and babies, my nephew and his lovely bride, my darling auntie and her son, my cousin.  My folks, the hosts.  Fabulous dinner.

7.  We waited for running son to call from exotic lands.  He called.  We all talked forever.  I got to go last. It was a wonderful conversation which I found very, very hard to end.  

8.  We drove home in cartoonish amounts of snow.  Great billowing gusts of snow.  Sheets of sideways-slanting, light-beguiling, blinding snow.  What is the deal about the point of the mountain, you people who know stuff about Utah?  Why is it so very horrible, snow-wise?  

9.  And now, I am collapsing, even as we speak, so to speak, if you know what I mean.  What a wonderful, mad, crowded, over-packed, portmanteau of a day.  Very, very merry.