The Five Randoms: The After-Christmas Edition

1) Sledding is all fun and games until it reminds you you're no longer 10 years old. We went out on Christmas Day to sled down the hill that makes up part of our backyard. The snow was still two-feet deep and crusty, making the sled swoosh down the hill with surprising speed. I, of course, couldn't navigate the sled very well (the downside of being an Arizona baby) and ended up flopping to the side, screwing up my knee and shoulder in the process. Above is an ode to a great sledding scene from the Griswald's family Christmas. I didn't go THAT fast, but it sure felt like it.

2) I'm thinking of keeping our lights up until March 21. Seriously. Since we moved to the East, I've noticed everyone has an electric candle in their windows at Christmas time. (In the West, we put chili lights on the palm trees--no candles in the windows.) Because it gets dark here at 4 p.m. and everyone's warning me about the Winter Blahs, I'm seriously considering keeping those lights up until the first day of spring. It's not like I'm keeping a red-nosed Rudolph on the roof until Labor Day or anything, so stop with the face already.

3) I didn't watch as many Christmas movies as I should have, and I saw WAY too many bad versions of A Christmas Carol. I only saw Elf and about the first 10 minutes of three versions of A Christmas Carol (the George C. Scott version, the Patrick Stewart version, and one Lifetime version that was so bad I only had it on for about 28.2 seconds). I'm very persnickety when it comes to A Christmas Carol, or any book that was turned into a movie for that matter. I hate the Harry Potter films, since none of them give me the same warm fuzzy bubblies as the books. Same with A Christmas Carol--none are dark enough for me.

4) Not only are the lights staying up a bit longer, but so is the Christmas tree. My husband's mom and sister are coming out the first week of January, and we thought it would be festive to keep up the tree and decorations until they leave. So in other words, it's going to be Christmas around here until, oh, Martin Luther King Day.

5) I'm still full from Christmas Dinner. To be fair, Christmas Dinner was served Christmas Eve, and I made sure I had one-and-a-half plates of turkey, stuffing, yams, sweet potatoes, onion casserole, and the like. Then, there were leftovers to be eaten on Christmas Day, along with goodies from the stockings and fattening delicacies the neighbors had brought over--fudge, zucchini bread, peppermint bark. My stomach would like to have a word with my mouth one of these days...