Christmas 1999 was held rather early this year due to the non-event which was to be Y2K. John and I went to NY from the 10th to the 15th of December. The flight was painless (other than my continuing chest pain which has yet to be successfully explained to me) and we arrived in Ottawa with ease. John picked up the rental car and we got our baggage (which is a lovely bright yellow!) and headed south. We did not make any major navigational mistakes and we arrived in Potsdam around 10:00. There we made the social blunder of eating out instead of at home. I was barely forgiven! At my parents house we admired the Christmas tree and then began wrapping. I had ordered most of the gifts for my family from catalogs or from online. My mom and dad had stashed them all away for us and we wrapped for a few hours then went to sleep.

Since my sister and her family were not planning on coming over until later in the afternoon we had plenty of time to finish up the wrapping in the morning. My dad cooked us a huge breakfast with bacon which is one of the things I enjoy about going to my parent's. My sister and her family arrived and the kids opened their presents then we had dinner. After dinner it was the adult's turn to open presents and I made everyone open them one at a time. This worked out quite well and I think we shall continue the tradition next year. My aunt Marilyn and uncle Wayne stopped by before church and I really enjoyed spending some time with them.

Over the next couple of days I tried to spend time with everyone as much as possible. Laurel always makes time for me when I come home and that is great. We played lots of scrabble and ate way too much food but it was enjoyable.