Christmas passed

A few favorite gifts and moments in no particular order:

1. Singing Christmas carols with Skye on Christmas morning. Who knew "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" had such profoundly sinless Christianity lyrics?

God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas day,
To save us all from Satan's pow'r
When we were gone astray;

2. Emma got a FisherPrice photography toy. Basically she mashes a big button and a wheel spins around and makes a noise like a shutter along with a flash and tells her about some animal or thing that is on the wheel. Awesome!

3. Shoe laces! Yeehaw! I needed these something awful.

4. Coffee grinder. My Braun grinder mysteriously gave up the java ghost, and my tinkering brought it to life momentarily but ultimately failed! Waah! But despair no longer, a new one has arrived, with built-in time settings! Woo!

5. Gift certificates galore. Target, Circuit City, and many others. Yay!

6. Not really a Christmas gift, but last night the neighbor lady agreed to watch a sleeping Emma for one hour while Skye and I ran out to Target—that's right, just us! Wow! It was like being 21 again.

7. The promise of an iPod. We weren't able to wrangle one in time (the 20 gigs are pretty much sold out nationwide), but in a month or two I might have one in my hands (partially assisted by the Target or Circuit City gift certs).