Recapping Christmas day: Goods and Woods

As is customary over the last couple of years, I thought I'd do quick recap of Christmas day. And I do mean quick, after Monday's crazy-long post, I told myself that I wouldn't do any more long one's for at least a week. Real quick though, since I brought up Monday's post, I just wanted to thank everyone for the positive feedback on that one, it's hard to tell how something like that is going to go over, so it was nice to see that it seemed to resonate with a few of you. Anyways, back to Christmas...

This Christmas was fairly standard (which is a good thing), for anyone new, my mom's birthday is on Christmas, so as per usual I try to make the day about her as much as possible. Over the last couple of years we've sort of fallen into a groove (that too is a good thing), presents in the morning, lunch, and then go for a hike in the afternoon. I've got pictures from two out of the three (I don't do food pics) to show, so I'll just go in order and start with the gifts.

This year's stocking stuffer! With as bonkers as people are over Prizm these days, especially Prizm rookies, it's hard to believe that she found a couple of discounted 2016-17 rack packs still in the wild just a couple of months ago. My mom knows a bit about Prizm's popularity, but upon me unwrapping them, it was still funny to hear her say "I wonder how much those would go for on eBay?". It did get me to thinking though, so I checked, the last couple have sold for between $25-30 apiece, that's a lot of money just for a rack pack. Since the risk to reward ratio is so small on these, and with me not being overly comfortable opening up a "$25" pack, I am seriously considering selling these, and then using the money to get her something. My mom has taken on quite a few projects in recent years, all of which usually require money, so fifty bucks could potentially go a long way towards one of those projects.

Ah, what would a Christmas be without Spawn? Sorry for the bad pic, but I was trying to hurry up. Not a bad selection though, as they were all new to me.

I mentioned that my mom has taken on a bunch of projects, but I have as well, and have quite a few other's in mind, I just don't have the right equipment/supplies to start yet. One of those things that I didn't have, but very much wanted, was a heat gun. I've obviously lamented aloud on more than one occasion about how much a decent heat gun would cost, and that I would just have to hope that I could find a used one for less money at some point, because she got me one, and not just any one, but one of the one's that I had been eyeing for quite some time.

I've mentioned in past year's posts that my mom has a habit of going overboard with the Christmas presents, even though I always tell her multiple times during the year that it's not necessary. Well, I'm happy to report that it only took 37 years, but she finally listened to my pleas, and didn't go crazy with the gifts this year! Any one of these three things would've been enough for me, but all three together made for a pretty solid batch of presents.

I can't remember who first suggested going for a hike on Christmas, but after doing so now for four consecutive years, I think I can safely refer to it as a Christmas tradition. I know that my mom looks forward to it, and honestly, so do I.

The weather has been absolutely fantastic here this week, mid 60's, and just under 70 degrees on Christmas, so it's definitely good weather for doing things outside. I've had the whole week off, this was my third excursion into the woods so far, and I'll be going out hiking/exploring again tomorrow.

I didn't take a lot of photos this year, and the one's that I did take were mostly creek shots.

All in all, it was another really solid Christmas, got a couple of neat things, got to go for 2 1/2 hour hike, and more importantly, I got to spend the whole day with my mom! Hopefully everyone reading this had just as wonderful of a day as I did :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.