Christmas, 2008

Christmas is really hard these days. I am torn between spending it with my children and spending it with my wife. I wish I didn't have to make that choice, but there it is.

For reasons that I won't go into right now (no, I'm not dying), I have chosen this year to spend Christmas and New Year's with my children. I am happily going to be able to do that in two stops; Mary and Mark will be in Houston the week before Christmas and Deborah will be there for the whole holiday.

So a week from tomorrow, the 15th, I will be flying to Houston. Mary and Mark will already be there and Deborah comes in the next day. I'll get to know Ian, finally.

The day after Christmas I will fly to Salt Lake City. I would like to be able to spend Deborah's birthday on the 27th with her, but I just couldn't make the flights and my budget work out.

I am planning on staying with Paul and Melina, as long as I don't have too severe a reaction to their cat. I don't know what Plan B is on that front.

Paul and Melina have something planned for New Year's Eve, so that night everyone else is having a party, probably at Rachel and Tim's. I will spend other time with the girls too, I just don't have it figured out yet.

Then I go home on the 2nd, Friday.

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone, though I also feel bad about not being with Sally and Emma on their first Christmas without Walt. But as Art Williams used to say, "All you can do is all you can do".

One other thing came up which almost scuttled the trip. I just found out (minutes from pressing the "Buy this plane ticket" button) that I am being moved to a different project at work, and that I might have to stick around to get trained on it. Luckily, that got ironed out.

I wish could come bearing Christmas gifts for everyone, but not this time. I am working on a sorta hand-made gift for the kids, one per kid, but I'm afraid it won't be finished in time.