While Abby is a typical early-riser, and those genes don't come from Berta or me, neither of the kids have yet discovered the Christmas morning ritual of waking their parents at 5am with "Can we open our presents now?" Thankfully. No, I'm about to ruin my good fortune by saying we've been strangely lucky in our ability to sleep in until 9am or so before the kids stir. Still, there's a lot to do on Christmas day, and sometimes it seems more like work than a Holiday should bring.

We'll usually get up at say, 9am. I'm sure that as the kids get older, this will change and be earlier. We need to give a reasonable amount of time for Santa to place gifts under the tree, so we'll have to enforce some limit on the time before we can go downstairs.

We'll do our present opening shortly after we wake up. Our past years of gift unwrapping has been kind of odd. I've never met kids so unenthusiastic about opening gifts. I think they need to pace themselves. Maybe a better plan would be to open a few gifts at a time throughout the day. Not that they won't be opening gifts all day, as you'll see.

After gifts, which likely includes some coffee for the parents, we'll do breakfast. I've been convincing Berta to make this "traditional" - at least it's a tradition for us now that we've been doing it for a few years - New York-style baked cream cheese French toast. There's a special stoneware dish she cooks it in, and it's basically small-square French toast with cream cheese and maple syrup baked in. There's usually also some link sausage and orange juice.

We've been inviting my dad over for breakfast, which I think may end up being a second breakfast for him, since he's the early riser (I knew it came from somewhere), and we do our gift exchange with him in the morning and loaf around a little to let the kids play with their stuff. Somewhere between our initial present opening and breakfast, someone runs to my mom's where my brother stays when he comes to visit, and transports him to our house to visit with us and my dad.

At a late lunch time, Dad rolls out and Berta and I stare at each other while the kids play and seem to forget about the second meal of the day. Pat doesn't usually seem to care about food, since he's often still on Pacific time and probably still isn't even awake.

Shortly after that Mom and Nana roll in. We do round three of gift exchange. As I said, the kids have stuff to open all day. Last year we got two Christmas trees, one for the living room and one for the family room, because there were simply too much gifts. Not that I wish anything bad on anyone, but perhaps the recent economic downturn will reduce that this year. If not, we've only got one tree this time, so I'm just going to be chucking new stuff into the basement as it starts to pile up.

Gift exchange with Mom, and then dinner. I don't remember what we did last year, but Mom's bringing dinner to our house this year. We'll probably eat dinner, play with our toys a little bit, and then Nana will get tired and want to leave. This usually happens around 5pm. I kid. 8pm. If she would just put the dishes in the washer and not putter all evening maybe she wouldn't wear out so quickly, but then again, maybe she does that to keep herself busy and then doesn't know what to do with herself after and that's why she wants to leave. Perhaps we should find something that would keep her entertained in the evening.

Anyway, that's a pretty full day.

And then on the weekend we get to visit my in-laws: Three of Berta's sisters' and their parents' worth of Christmas packed into virtually a single whole day 220 miles from home. Pack the books, it's going to be a long trip.

I think last year was similar and went smoothly, although we ran a bit late in the morning. I think we're going to adjust times this year, so that things work out even more smoothly. The ultimate goal is to depressurize Christmas for everyone. It's supposed to be a joyous/fun holiday, and although forcing joy and fun ruins it, I think the word "relax" is the key to success. We'll see how it goes.

Berta's sister, Mary Ann, and her husband, Ryan, visited over the weekend. With them, we went to select our Christmas tree.

What bothers me about this year, and last year, is that we've been trying to go out for a "cut your own tree" experience. I mean, what's the point of going out to get a tree form a tree farm if you aren't cutting down your own tree? You might as well buy a tree from one of the stands on the side of the road.

So we went out in search for the tree farm. It's strange that I don't think to use the internet to place the tree farm, but just drive out aimlessly to locate it. And this is how we ended up at the wrong tree farm again this year.

It's actually not so bad. The Farmer in Lyndell is where we ended up. It's a little farm with a baling machine and plenty of people to help you with your tree. The trees are $9 per foot.

What is bad about the experience is that they've got all of the equipment for going out into the farm and cutting down your own tree, but they don't really let you do it. I mean, they let you do it, but they've already cut down all of the good trees.

Instead, they keep a bevy of pre-cut and bound trees piled against a fence near the baler. There are about 20-30 trees in stands open on display. You can look over them, choose one, have it baled and taken to your car where they strap it on the roof with twine. Then, they replace that tree in the stand with one of the pre-cut, pre-baled trees sitting on the fence. So you don't get your pick of the trees. You get to pick from a subset of the good trees they've already cut down. What a sham!

Bernard's Tree Farm, in contrast, makes you take a saw into the field and cut your own. There are no pre-cut trees. And the farm is enormous. You get the pick of whatever's out there, not just what's left after the good stuff is taken.

Basically, they've robbed me of my Christmas spirit. It should be about picking and cutting down your own tree. Instead of dragging a tree cart and saw around a barren field, I could have gone to a roadside sale. What I should have done is driven a few more miles in search of Bernard's. I will definitely do that next year.

There is no Christmas shopping done. I think we've just about given up this year. My only enthusiasm for this holiday so far is for it to be over. Of the bazillion lights we bought last year to put outside, we've hung exactly zero.

I think we blew through our Christmas enthusiasm on the weekend after Thanksgiving when we went tree shopping, couldn't find the usual place, and ended up with a decent but pre-cut tree. I wasn't home when Berta and the kids decorated both trees this year. The one in the family room still isn't done being decorated, I think. And thinking about it now, I wonder if I'm going to have the stamina for two trees worth of holiday.

To accompany the live tree in the living room we're getting new furniture on Tuesday. A loveseat. Some form of seating has been on order from somewhere or other since September, and is only now arriving. Note that this is only half of the pieces that were ordered. Some kind of leather chair is yet to have a delivery date.

Thursday is my company Christmas party. We're bowling someplace downtown. Seems like it should be more fun than the company-sponsored parties at previous jobs.

This weekend is the usual trip to Johnstown. Berta's sister Ellen will be in from Idaho, hence the imperative to visit this weekend. As a result, we're missing Stan's annual party, and Brian visiting, and the only full weekend that Pat will be home. I'm not bitter, but I am just turning off the emotion parts or I think the speed of this holiday will shred me. I will concentrate on preparing to keep myself entertained over the weekend, which will all go to waste as we involve ourselves with visiting relatives and Berta's eldest sister's 40th birthday party, all backed into the 39 hour span of a visit.

Also our clothes washer has broken. I realize I'm a lot better off than a lot of people out there, but a little holiday magic/sanity/rest/time-dilation would be appreciated.

I used to live near a paper mill. Several of them. Some of my family worked there, including my grandfather and my uncle Joe (my grandmother's sister's husband). Both my grandfather and Uncle Joe were in the Navy, and they plied their skills at tying knots to their new trade in the private sector.

Perhaps it is not widely imagined how paper is processed by a mill. Actually, all of the paper mills in Downingtown are recycled paper plants. They don't use cut trees to make paper, just old paper and cardboard. The paper is put into a big vat of chemicals to help break it down and re-form it into pulp, then it's pressed out through some machinery to be flattened and dried. The resulting paper can be any thickness, and can be used to construct many things, like boxes for board games, french fry containers, or inch-thick concrete pillar molds.

When flat, cut stock comes off the line, it's often stacked in piles and wrapped in cellophane. Prior and in addition to this method of keeping the paper from flying all over the place, the paper was tied together with string. If you've ever tried to tie a knot around something box-shaped, you know the standard difficulties. Now try imagining that the string has to be tight enough to withstand shipment and that the box isn't a solid object, but many thousands of shifting pieces of paper or cardboard. Then, perhaps, the benefit of such a specific knot becomes apparent.

During a Christmas visit to my Mom's, Aunt Rosie and Uncle Joe stopped for a visit. Because I had my video camera, Mom suggested that I record the special knot to record this slowly vanishing art. I think it's sad that many useful and clever things such as this become lost to time as technology progresses, and was happy to record it for posterity. Benefit from the simple wisdom of these talents that are too infrequently practiced.

The roll of string that Uncle Joe is using is the same type of roll we used to use at the Bay (more stories to tap there) to tie everything. (Think tomato plants, mostly.) All of the rolls at the Bay were smaller than this one, and they lasted forever. The roll in this video looks practically new, and is likely eternal.

Yes, the gift being tortured is Pat's XBox.