Christmas Eve--my favorite day of the year!

It really is my favorite day of the year. When I said this to one of my friends, she asked, "Why Christmas Eve? Why not Christmas Day?"
"Because Christmas Day is so close to the end of Christmas. I love the day of anticipation more. I love Christmas Eve because I spend all day waiting for Christmas to come. It makes me excited."

Anyway, I had a productive day--got all of my chores done, went jogging, played Christmas carols on the piano, and even went last-minute shopping for Christmas. My mother had a coupon for $10 off anything in the department store of JC Penny and it was expiring today so she told me to go ahead and use it. I asked her what she wanted to buy and, without hesitation, she said, "Underwear." And so I bought my mother underwear. Now I don't know what size her underwear is, and I didn't want to take a pair of her undies into the mall, just in case someone might think that I stole it. So, what I did was take a pair of her clean underwear and cut out a paper replica of it. Imagine the look on the face of the saleslady when I held out my cut-up copy and said, "Do you have any underwear in THIS size?" Mind you, my mother has a bit of a hefty waist so we're not talking petite undies here. I saw the saleslady' eyes grow all wide when she saw it. "Um, er, we might have that size over there." She ended up showing me a pair of just the right size and I "bought" it with the coupon.

When my mother came home from work that night, I showed her the new undies and her first reaction was, "Wow! A name brand! I've always wanted of these!" Apparently, she had liked this brand of underwear for a long time, and had sworn to buy one someday but always balked at the last minute. She thought they were too expensive. I didn't even notice the name brand, but then again, I don't notice much.
Well, they fit when she tried them on so I must have done something right.

Anyway, I went to Christmas Eve Mass tonight and halfway through, I realized that I had forgotten my gift to my godmother! I had wrapped up these blue-and-white porcelain food dishes for her gift, you see, and then I forgot them at home. I started to panic in the middle of church, but then I remembered that I could just give them to her some other time. A late present is still nicer than no present at all, at least most of the time. I apologized to her after church, but she said that she had a present for me, too, and that to wait until tomorrow to exchange gifts. Christmas IS technically tomorrow so I suppose it can wait until then. I can't wait until she sees her gift! I quadrupled wrapped it because my godmother has four sons (three of them very young) and the extra wrapping is just in case one of them gets their hands on it before she's able to open it. This way, the dishes should be safe in case one of them tries shaking it or accidentally drops it. Now that I think about, though, quadruple wrapping it might have been overkill. She might have a hard time unwrapping it at all. Oh well. It's all been done. In any case, Happy Holidays, everyone!