And just like that, it's over. All of the preparation, the franticness, the stress and everything is done in one day.

However, I must say that this year's Christmas, compared to the last few, was absolutely glorious. Not that the other ones were bad. Not in any way. But this one far surpassed any that I've had in awhile and that really made all the preparation worth it.

It actually all started the weekend of the 15th. As I stated in my last post, we were heading off to NC to visit my dad's side of the family. They live in a very small town in the central part of the state and it's only about four hours from here. And the quickest way to get there is through two-lane country roads from here all the way through both SC and NC. I was doing the whole trip from memory on these little roads that were pretty much pitch black and I'm proud to say I only got turned around once. But after a quick consultation of the map, we got back on the right track without losing any time and we arrived in town a little after 10pm.

We spent the weekend visiting with my grandparents and my dad. Lunch and presents were on Saturday and then we went to my uncle's to hang out and ride the four-wheelers. He's got a lot of land and a lot of big kid toys there so we hung around for awhile just having fun and drinking some beer. Sunday we drove around town and gave Steve the official tour which included a few circles around town and trips to the Wal-Mart, Maxway, Roses and the Dollar Store. And we had lunch with my cousin and his wife, whom I haven't seen in awhile. It was basically a lot of laughter and catching up and good down home fun. A long, exhausting but very fun weekend.

Oh, and turns out, I did have the Internets so I wasn't hyperventilating or anything. The hotel we were staying in didn't technically offer it with their room but I think the people who owned the place actually lived behind the office and had their own personal wireless internet set up. But stupidly, they didn't protect it and since our room was about 500 feet from there, I was able to sit right at the window and have full internet access. Not that it mattered because we were too busy all weekend for me to do anything worthwhile but it was still nice knowing I had the access if needed.

Regardless, we got back Sunday evening and unloaded everything into the apartment. Back to work on Monday, which was fine because when things get stressful, I always enjoy a bit of a routine. But the evenings were filled with cleaning the apartment, baking cookies and wrapping presents. Even last Friday, when I took off of work, was filled with last minute shopping and an anal but well-needed wall to wall and ceiling to floor cleaning of the apartment.

But by Saturday, I was ready. And I used that whole day for some well-deserved relaxation. Steve and I got up and had breakfast then spent the rest of the day alternating between playing video games and watching movies. And it continued to Sunday morning, when I finally wrapped the rest of the presents and we loaded my car down and headed to my parents.

But all in all, Christmas was great. I avoided one major stress and did most of my shopping online this year. When I had to go to the post office, I went early in the morning, right when they opened instead of at lunch time like everyone else in the damn world. Basically, it just ended up being a real nice time at home with family and that was all that mattered.

We wrapped more presents and drank wine and baked cookies. We watched movies and played along with the World Series of Pop Culture on VH1 and opened our one gift that we're allowed to open on Christmas Eve. We all got a special set of pajamas and everyone put them on and we sat around in them all night.

My little brother woke us up at 5:40am and we knew my parents had gone to bed at like 4am, so we packed all of us kids into the card and headed out on a search for breakfast. It was fully intended that we go to someplace like McDonald's and then bring food back for my parents but no one was open except the Huddle House so we found ourselves piled into a booth at 6am with me and my brothers still in our pajamas ordering food. When we got back, we thought we would try to go back to sleep but that wasn't happening because we were all pretty much awake and couldn't stand the anticipation so we were up and going through our presents by 7am.

The rest of the day flew by with a blur. My parents got a karaoke machine so we played around with that and croaked out some songs. We were awful but it was fun. My little brother got an electric guitar so Steve was teaching him to play. The boys played XBox for a little while and we all ended up taking naps in the afternoon. Then we started cooking dinner and had the Eagles/Cowboys game on (And damn, was it an awesome Christmas present that they were playing on Christmas, that they were playing the Cowboys and that not only beat them, but they beat them good and we earned a spot in the playoffs. It also was a lot of fun seeing T.O. drop that pretty much perfectly thrown pass in the third quarter.) After dinner, we just sort of hung out a little more before Steve and I packed up to come home.

Regardless, things just felt so much better this year. We had a great time at home. It was the first time Steve and I were together on Christmas day. Everybody loved their presents and we all had fun hanging out and playing with them. I didn't have to worry about airports or fitting stuff into suitcases. And everyone just generally seemed to have a great time.

And isn't that what Christmas is all about?

For the past three years, the holidays have culminated in a week-long trip to South Carolina so I could gurantee that I would not wake up on Christmas morning alone. Therefore, most of my preparation revolved around buying presents that could travel well and that fit within my schedule. I always celebrated Christmas with Steve and his family after I returned which meant I always had an extra week (and after Christmas sales!) to prepare for them. And on top of spending Christmas at my mom's, we always took a day or two to drive to NC to see my dad and my grandparents, which meant I avoided the hassle of having to go near a Post Office during the holiday season.

All of that has changed and I haven't decided if it's for the better. This year, I don't have to fly home to SC because I'm already here and due to circumstances with work and time, we unfortunately cannot go back to Pennsylvania for Christmas. This will be the first year that Steve and I will actually be together on Christmas Day in the morning, as in we go to bed together on Christmas Eve and wake up together to see what Santa has brought. Which means I have to have his present ready and under the tree by Christmas Day, something I'm really not accustomed to doing. And this year, I don't have any excuses for, say, giving my dad a "gift basket" in a shirt box because the shirt box was so much easier to travel with than a fancy basket. Or for locking myself in the bedroom on Christmas Eve to wrap presents because I couldn't wrap them until I got to SC since the airlines would have made me unwrap them anyway.

But I do have to have some presents ready by, well, tomorrow because we are traveling, really, but it's only a four hour drive to NC to visit my dad's side of the family and celebrate Christmas with them. This isn't working all to well into my schedule either because previously, we had to pack the NC into the Christmas week, which happened at the end of the month. This year, we will be spending Christmas weekend with my parents and I don't have any time off which means NC has to be squeezed into a weekend; this weekend to be exact.

I had a routine and that has all changed. I started shopping at the end of November and got all of my SC presents done right before Christmas. I would make my lists and stay up until 3 am packing the night before my flight left. I'd then brave the airport, praying to God that the bottle of wine I got my dad didn't bust all over my clothes and that the person sitting next to me on the plane would be at least semi-interesting. I'd arrive in SC all fresh-eyed and excited because I hadn't seen my parents in about six months and we'd decorate the tree and do some last minute shopping (this is when I did my shopping for NC) and go to the Festival of Lights and open presents and then go visit my grandparents. I'd then get back on the plane to PA and be met at my apartment by boxes of presents that I'd ordered online for Steve's family. They'd get wrapped up quickly and brought over to celebrate Christmas for the third time. And then it would all culminate on New Year's Eve somewhere with our friends and beer and champagne and just like that, the lights would disappear and the Christmas carols would stop and bleary January would stomp in making me all sad and depressed that I'd have to wait another 365 days for the warm and fuzzy feeling that always washes over me at Christmas.

Now, there's no vacation time, only weekends. There's closer deadlines that I have to meet, both for our trip to NC and to mail presents back to PA. There's Christmas cards that depend on two people instead of one, and having to wait for the other person to fill them out. There's no waiting until after Christmas to exchange gifts. There's our own tree to decorate and our own shopping to do and there's never enough money to do it with. There's no trips to the airport (I'm almost thanking God! for this one) and no bittersweet goodbyes. There's a rush, but a different kind, one that doesn't seem so stressful because I'm not traveling all over hell and creation. One that I'm sure will change next year when our vacation time builds up and we can go back to PA for Christmas.

Things will be different. One of the things I do miss the most is the snow and the cold chill in the air that gets into your bones and makes you thankful for being able to cozy up in front of a warm fire. There was something about the sparkling of Christmas lights against the backdrop of newly fallen snow that made me feel all warm and gooey inside. And something about the quiet calm that settled over the world as the snow fell. There were many nights Steve and I would go out driving during a snowstorm (his vehicle was more than equipped for it) and would get out somewhere in the middle of nowhere and just stand there, listening to nothing. It was an eerie quiet but comforting and there were times I swore I could hear the snow fall.

Now, there's a calmness about the fact that I'm not going to have to say goodbye to anybody this year. I won't be leaving one person I love to visit the other. I won't be choosing. My heart won't tug for the part that's missing on Christmas morning because he will be sitting right beside me. But at the same time, we won't have that time apart that, as much as it hurt, always seemed to bring us closer together (because seriously, the saying about absence making the heart grow fonder has always been true in our case).

I gues this is just all a part of the bigger scheme, of how my life has changed over the past year. There is something greater developing here, a better sense of family and comfort and home. And despite all of the familiarity of what we used to know, there's something comfortable about this place.

A few nights ago, I was so tired and run ragged from all of the Christmas preparation that I couldn't decide whether I wanted to nod off or burst into tears. I'm actually still like that at this point because not everything is done. Regardless, I had reached a point where I was cursing Christmas because of all the stress involved with it. And I swore up and down to Steve that it had never been this bad but looking back, it always has been, just in a different way, in a different capacity. Things have changed but the stress of Christmas hasn't. It has just shifted. And therefore, I can't blame that on the difference in location or circumstances. I can only blame it on my undying need to buy the perfect Christmas present for each person and to have my home cozy and decorated and to send out Christmas cards to each person we love to let them know that we're thinking of them over the holiday season.

And I can bitch and complain about it but I know very well that Christmas morning (or, tomorrow night in NC) all of those feelings will be gone. Everything leading up to that day will have been completely worth it to see the look on my family's faces when they open their gifts or to see how excited my little brother is at what Santa has brought him. And then I'll do it all again next year and the year after.

Sometimes I let myself get so wrapped up in the "have to's" of the season. As in, I have to buy these presents and I have to send these Christmas cards. And sometimes I need to step back and just deal with the "want to's". As in, I want to have Christmas dinner with my family or I want to drive around and look at Christmas lights or I want to see the Christmas tree downtown.

If we could all do that - if we could all strike that healthy balance between our obligations and our desires, we may very well be able to get back to the good feelings about Christmas, instead of the vapid commericialism that plagues this holiday. The old cliche that "it's the thought that counts" really does hold true. It doesn't matter how much you spend if you actually put some thought into the gifts and have something the person could really appreciate.

So this year, I've resolved to do things that keep me from becoming an embittered Scrooge for the holidays. I did most of my shopping online so I don't have to deal with every asshole that doesn't know shopping etiquette. I printed out the envelopes for my Christmas cards. I put up all my decorations December 1st so I wouldn't have to worry about them. I baked cookies for people whom I just couldn't think of gifts. I plan on spending the night at my parents house on Christmas Eve and on all of us piling into the same vehicle to go to the Festival of Lights for hot chocolate and some sparkly Christmas cheer.

It's all about making the "have to's" balance perfectly with the "want to's" and doing it the easiest way possible. And even though the "want to's" always outweigh the "have to's" (as in, I want to go to PA or I want to buy everybody everything they ever wanted), things always seem to work out and I always find myself on New Year's wishing that the season didn't have to end.

And I'll be doing the same this New Year's even though right now, I wish it was all over.

As I said, I'll be in NC for the weekend, in a tiny town with no internet access so don't expect updates from me (as if you ever did). If I'm not back on Monday it's because I went into convulsions from the lack of online interactivity.

... or, how do you blog?

I'm not new to this blogging scene. I've kept websites and online journals since around 1997, hopping around from place to place. This site, my final resting place on the web, began when I was a sophomore in college and despite going through many changes, has always been centered around my journal.

I remember having to explain to people exactly what a blog meant. I had people asking me why I would want to put my life out there like that, because even back when I started, it wasn't as prevalent to do something like this. Now, it seems like everybody and their brother has a web presence.

I've seen the genre's change. I've seen design styles morph and evolve and just like high school, I've seen (and been a part of, natch!) trends that exploded then died a quick (or slow) death.

I've watched cam girls grow up (not too well in that case, unfortunately), seen the transformation and departure of some of the more famous net presences, and to this day wonder what happened to many of the prominent bloggers from back in the day who have all but disappeared from the net scene.

Remember chromeless pop-up windows? Splash pages? The constant rise and fall of 10 pt Tahoma and Verdana? Tables? Java applets? I-Frames and the little check box required to open links in new windows? Button walls? Calls for hostees to any random people? Guestbooks? Tagboards?

Like the interweb, this site has evolved. And I'm grateful to look back and at its beginnings and see what it has become.

But sometimes, I find that even as I grow up, I find it harder to maintain than back in the beginning. Maybe because it was new and exciting back then. I certainly wasn't less busy. I was more busy, working two jobs and going to school, but I always found time to blog.

Maybe I feel like I've run out of ideas. Kind of like reaching the end of the Internet. I feel like I've been on it so long that I've written about everything.

Sometimes mustering up the creativity is hard enough. I spend all day on the computer and when I come home, I'm usually on here too, mindlessly surfing, trying to let my mind settle from all the crap that I had to concentrate on during the day. Coming up with a post can be taxing. And even worse, when I go long periods without updating, I have so much to say that I have to strike a fine balance between wanting to tell everyone everything and not wanting to bore you all with a ridiculously long entry.

Then there's other times when I don't want to get caught blogging at work. Or when I'm trying to spend time with Boyfriend and watch a movie or a TV show and don't want him to feel like he's being neglected. Particularly if I know it's going to take a little while to compose my thoughts properly.

Maybe I'm too easily distracted. I've always been the type of person that has to mute the TV in order to talk on the phone. Or if I try and watch TV when I'm on the computer, I miss half of everything. Don't even try to speak to me when I'm reading a book. Maybe a quarter of the information will get to me.

I guess what I'm saying is that I stopped concentrating so much on the graphic design part of this site in order to try and blog more. Aside from the fact that changing up the layout every month or so became even more cumbersome than writing an entry, I wanted a streamlined process. Change some colors and upload a new masthead and voila, old but new.

But blogging has a tendency to fall by the wayside too. Maybe I need to schedule it. Maybe I need to get up earlier or stay up later and turn off every distraction and just write.

I'm not looking to try too hard, I'm just looking for some motivation.

How do you blog? How do you fit in or find the time to write amongst all your daily activities? How do you get inspired? How do you compose your thoughts?

We all are a part of the blogsphere. Sometimes it's nice to see people's methods and motivation.

Feel free to kick me in the butt once in awhile. It may just be the motivation I need.

I know, everything's so blue but frankly, I got sick of the other colors. They made me want to puke. And blue always puts me in a wintery, Christmasy mode. (On a side note, no, I did not do the Rudolph up there. It's from a wallpaper I got from Deviant Art. I loved it so much I thought I'd make a layout out of it.)

On to business.

I'm going to join everybody else in saying that I can't believe it's December. Sometimes, it feels like only yesterday since we moved down here. And I won't even get into the fact that it was almost a year ago that we actually made the decision to move. I guess time flies when you're having fun. *grins*

Regardless, I'm happy the holiday season is here. Next to Halloween and my birthday, Christmas is one of my favorites. I've had all of my decorations, including my tree, up since Thanksgiving and everything is all lit up and sparkly both inside the house and out. I love driving around town and seeing all the lights. It's very festive. On a side note, since we're talking about Christmas decorations, I want to reiterate something that veteran readers to my site may already know.

I despise those blow up yard decorations. DESPISE THEM! I have never liked them and everytime I see one or more of them clustered on people's lawns, I want to get a dart gun and pop them. It's so bad that it's actually become a running joke in my family. Everyone looks at me expectantly when we drive by a yard with them, waiting for me to roll my eyes and make gagging noises. I prefer simple and classic - white lights, green garlands and red bows. Or, on a different note, if you're going to be Clark Griswold, I can handle the sparkling of the many colored lights and being able to see them from down the street. Don't take away from that by adding those hideous blow up decorations. I could ALMOST handle the big, old retro lights in place of them but even that's pushing it.

Other than that, I really have no rants about the Christmas season, aside from not having much money, but isn't that the case for everyone? There's quite a few events approaching that I'm really excited about, partly because they seem fun and partly because they give us something to look forward to.

I'm especially excited to be able to spend Christmas with my family without having to fly home. Of course, on an equally sad note, we unfortunately won't be able to make it back North for Christmas, so we will be missing Steve's family terribly. But we will make it back, so that gives us hope. I think we're going to spend Christmas weekend at my parents so we can go to the Festival of Lights, which has become a yearly tradition for us. I also want to spend Christmas Eve there because I don't know about ya'll, but Santa still comes to visit us and I want to be there Christmas morning to see what he brought. *smiles*

We've got a small road trip to North Carolina in the works for the weekend of the fifteenth. I've got family there that I need to see so it will give us a nice break. We haven't gone any further than Myrtle Beach since we got down here so a change of scenery will be nice. And this coming up weekend, we have a football game and my company holiday party as well as the local holiday parade and tree lighting. A busy, busy month ahead!

Speaking of football, I am very proud to say that not only did my little brother kick complete butt in his regular season, but he made it to All Stars for the town and has spent the last three weeks competing against leagues from across the Charleston area. And they have won all three games. I'm not 100% sure how this works, because we haven't had a chance to talk to the coach, but I think if he wins next weeks game, he goes to the State championship (which, from what I'm gather, would actually be the Lower State championship - I think they split it between upper and lower SC). Regardless, we are so very proud of him! Love you kiddo!

And while we're on a proud note, I just wanted to say that part of the reason I was gone most of November is because I was participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you new to the game, it's something that's been going on for quite a few years and basically, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, from November 1st to the 30th. You don't win anything except a cool little icon and a certificate but you get the satisfaction of pushing yourself to write and reaching that goal. And ladies and gentleman, I reached the goal. The story's not completely finished but I'm working on the ending and will have it finished soon. But I'm just so proud of myself for doing it because I really, really thought it was going to be something that I just let fall to the wayside, like I've had the tendency to do with a bunch of other projects. But I didn't. I stated focused and determined and I completed it and I can't tell you how good that feels.

But now I'm sitting on a goldmine of stuff that I want to write about here. It's been building and building and I think one of my next goals is going to be to try and get at least fifteen posts completed this month. That's one every other day. It's doable. I was going to do one every day but I'm already a little late for that.

So keep checking back. Now that I have a facelift here and the NaNo project lifted, I'll definitely be using this as an outlet for all the holiday stress that I'm sure will build up.

Because that's really what it's for, right?