First xmas

I had a few people ask "so how was your first xmas as a married couple?" I hadn't thought of it as a big deal before but I guess this was the first time where we split the holidays between our families. I was really nervous about xmas shopping for his family and was pestering C a bunch as to ideas of what to get them. I probably went a little overboard and spent way too much getting them things. Actually, I hope that didn't set a bad precedent for future years. Uh oh. C's parents do a proper christmas with lights and a tree. And presents as well. It has been years since I had even bothered wrapping and giving presents and I must admit, it was kind of nice to exchange things. We were at his parents house for two days and didn't leave the house once (it was a very lazy time).

On the 26th, we drove down to LA for the holidays with my parents. My sister was already down there and had brought her dog for the first time who got to live in the garage. My parents kept commenting on how the dog didn't bark (we had a really barky dog as kids so that's all they remember). In contrast, in LA, we went out almost every day for meals and even caught up with some friends in the area. It actually passed by really quickly.

So what is interesting is how everyone is used to different things with how their family is. The one thing that C cannot get used to at my parent's house is that my mom doesn't believe in using the dishwasher or dishwashing soap. So I grew up washing dishes with a scrubber and water. My mom is paranoid about soap not being cleaned off dishes completely so doesn't like using it at all. Of course, it didn't help that my sister was sick so we were staring at the dishes trying to figure out which ones she had used. So it was probably good that we ate out most of the time