Snow, snow, snow everywhere! What better sign that Christmas is here? (Well, personally I could go for some sunshine, but let's be realistic.) A snowstorm hit Erie on Christmas Day, starting in the middle of the night (sometime while we were in Midnight Mass) and continuing through this morning and early afternoon. I began to fear people wouldn't be able to make it through the snow to our house for the big party at our house and then we'd be stuck with enough food for thirty (or a hundred) people and only eight to eat it. Fortunately, everyone pressed on and we had a full house today.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Christmas officially started last night with the first gift exchange. As there are six kids in this family, we decided several years ago that we just wouldn't attempt to buy each and every sibling a present as this could potentially take up our entire Christmas budgets. Thus, we do a Secret Santa exchange within the house. However, it seems that this year, only me and possibly Dan actually picked out and purchased the presents for our Secret Santas -- the rest came from my mom in the guise of sibling gifts. I guess it's not so bad -- the presents are usually nicer -- but it really seems to defeat the purpose. Oh well, it's Christmas, so why complain?

After opening these and other presents, we played a round of Cranium, the gift I'd gotten Sam. In light of the experience of playing it today as well, I'd like to say that it is best played a) with only two teams, b) without a lot of background noise, and c) without any drunk people. When someone's not quite sober, it's rather difficult to get them to pay attention long enough to explain the rules.

Eventually, we all got dressed up and went to Midnight Mass. This one is the real show -- the full choir, the pianist, and the brass band were all there, and all three priests plus a deacon and four altar servers (all female, by the way) led the celebration. There was enough incense to make you dizzy and enough volume to blow out your eardrums. It was almost like a rock concert.

After a bit of last-minute present-wrapping, I collapsed into bed around 3 a.m. I tried to stay up for the end of the classic version of A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim, but I fell asleep as soon as Tiny Tim died. I was not pleased to be awakened at 8 a.m., but I figured I'd just get up and go since it was going to happen that way no matter what. I went downstairs and opened my few presents (with getting a new laptop, the present total shrinks significantly, naturally). I had a cinnamon bun, set up my iBook, then went upstairs and slept until 11:30.

The rest of the afternoon was spent frantically cooking and preparing everything for the big Christmas bash. The potatoes took longer than expected and didn't brown sufficiently (we made them into a lovely casserole instead), the sweet potatoes didn't mash enough (there was no helping those), and the oven just didn't have enough room. But somehow, we managed to pull it off, and we provided the most enormous Christmas spread we've ever offered. (You all should have come to dinner -- we had enough for at least ten more people.)

I got some nice presents this year, and, surprisingly, most came from my Christmas list. I got the new iBook, of course, plus The Others and Arsenic and Old Lace on DVD, three pairs of shoes, a web cam, a subscription to Archaeology magazine, and more. I also got two pairs of pajamas, which I didn't ask for, but they're nice. And I just bought the new Foo Fighters CD off of my brother Sean, who got three copies of it.

Now I must start looking around for new software to clog my computer's hard drive with.