The Terrible Catsafterme

This was the third year in a row, following the great Christmas Day departure of 2008, that the Murphy Christmas gathering did not take place on the holiday itself. Whether I like it or not, this seems to be the wave of the future. So far the gathering has been pushed forward only a maximum of two days after the holiday, but I shudder to think what will happen when Christmas comes on an early weekday. But despite the non-holiday status of the gathering, these parties seem to be just as fun as they always have. This year my Mom hosted again (the first Christmas gathering she’s had since 2007) to a packed capacity house. This one came a little bit earlier than normal also. It began at 1pm, so folks who were going to work the next day would have time for the Sunday-evening-wind-down. Read the rest of this entry »

As usual, I was up before the household on Christmas morning. I could hear Adam rustling in his room, but he wasn’t asking to come downstairs yet. I popped in my new DVD of The Muppet Movie and after about 30 minutes, Adam made his first appearance. He noted that the cookies and milk were now gone, but made no effort to check under the tree. How he could forget that part, I have no idea. He plopped on my lap and we watched some of the movie together. At one point, he spotted something and mentioned a gift that he must have forgot to open – but then we realized he wasn’t referring to the gifts under the tree. He had spotted my car floor mats in a giant gift bag. Read the rest of this entry »

Yikes! That number is a bit scary. Forty Christmases here on earth, each one unique, and each one special. This year I really noticed how the Christmas celebration began the moment that Briana arrived. Ashleigh went to pick her up on Wednesday, December 22. We met at Chik-fil-A for dinner and then went shopping for our last-minute gifts at Target. Although Ash and Briana did their usual locking themselves in Ashleigh’s room, they did venture out for a bit so that we could all watch some Christmas videos of our Christmas celebrations from 2004 and 2005. Read the rest of this entry »

Although it wasn’t our first Christmas together, 2001 was the first Christmas that Carolyn and I spent as an engaged couple residing in the same house. And this meant that after a one-year hiatus, we would be hosting Christmas Eve again at our house. I was really in the Christmas spirit this particular year, having had the newly discovered It’s Christmastime All Over the World playing through the Muzak at work repeated. It took me weeks to figure out that it was Sammy Davis Jr. who was signing it, and I made sure I ordered the Christmas with the Rat Pack CD for next year. Read the rest of this entry »

I finished the 8th edition of the annual ABC Crew Christmas Newsletter on the morning of Sunday, December 19, 2010. But there wasn’t much of a ‘crew’ behind this one. Briana had told me at Thanksgiving that she didn’t think she’d be contributing this year, as she always felt pressured at the last minute when the month had gotten away from her and she had it hanging over her head. Ashleigh had decided to write her section, but later changed her mind when faced with the difficulty of recalling the good times that she had had with her ex-boyfriend, who had proven to be a complete loser. So I scrapped the original layout and came up with an 8-pager, the first one to be less than 12 pages since the first issue in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »