I'm back!

Christmas and the time spent with my family and friends was grand, but I'm so happy to be home! We got back last night and the drive wasn't so bad despite the weather and the numerous times we stopped along the way. For me, the drive's not usually bad. I've made the 7 hour trip so many times, it's not really a big deal. But every once in a while it seems harsher than normal. Thankfully this one was not, although there was every indication that the contrary would be true.

Like I said, I had a grand time. I always love this time of year. Mostly because I get to hang out with my family. It's one of the only times that I really get to see everybody. I love my family more and more all the time.

As unimportant as it is in the grand scheme of things, one can't talk about Christmas and withhold information about gifts. To be quite honest, this year was more lacking in the gift department than it has been in the past. My parents didn't buy me, nor my brothers, anything at all. There just wasn't enough money. I didn't buy anything for them either. We did as a family buy some gifts for other members of our family. We bought ten total to be exact. All very inexpensive, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do even that. So all of the gifts I received were from members of my extended family and I got one from a friend. But times are tough for more than just me and my family. So what I did get wasn't anything spectacular or grandiose. But I'm not usually thrilled by spectacular or grandiose things, so that's a-okay. I ended up getting a total of five books, all ones that I have already read and one that I already own. So I don't have anything new to read, but I love all of them and was thrilled to receive them. I don't think I've ever gotten so many books for Christmas before. Which is odd, because everyone knows I like to read, so every time they seem to be having trouble deciding what to get me, they should just buy a book instead of worrying about it. Anyway, that was the biggest highlight out of the gifts. In the past, I've gotten a good amount of money, but not this year. Like I said, times are tough.

I really hope that didn't sound like I was complaining. I wasn't at all. I don't need gifts to have Christmas. The only things that made me sad in the whole situation were 1.) I wasn't able to buy anything for anybody and 2.) I know my parents didn't like the fact that they couldn't buy their children anything. It's not like were putting pressure on them to get us anything (none of us felt bad about it at all), but as a parent I'm sure that was disappointing.

I really wanted to be able to make gifts for people this year because that is much more economical and much more meaningful in my opinion, but with school that just wasn't going to happen. Maybe if I start planning earlier this year, and work at it over the course of the whole year and not wait to cram everything in all at once, I will actually be able to do that. It's a lofty ideal, that may not be so lofty if I actually put my mind to it.

That's about it as far as Christmasy things go. Next I feel compelled to give you a follow-up on my last two posts. While I was away, God helped me to understand some of what was going on and revealed some things to me. But I will put that in another post. I have a feeling it will be rather lengthy. Said post to come soon. How soon, I'm not sure. But you can be on the lookout.