leftovers

Dad Helping me unwrap my gifts at Grandma & Grandpa Strecker's. After last year's commitment to post a blog entry each day, I've understandably been pretty absent this year. I think I've averaged one blog post per month. To end out the year, and to pay tribute to my second favorite holiday season, I am going to write each day from now until Yuletide, also known and formerly referred to by myself as Christmas. Each day I will touch on a different topic either relating to the holiday season, or completely unrelated. Today, I will recount the typical holiday seasons of my youth. At school, we would all be very excited about the arrival of Santa Claus but were busily concerned with things like the winter musical or concert, the gift exchange, and all the tests and assignments we'd have to finish before the break. At home, I would anxiously thumb through the pages of the JC Penney catalog, dog-earing the pages that had the toys I hoped so desperately to find under...