"The 'Ho' Bag"**

Spent the holiday weekend at my parents' house in Central Illinois (or Illitucky as my friend J calls it!)...all in all, it was an excellent time. Of course, 2 minutes into the family Christmas party (aka The Country Christmas Jamboree), my brother was being set up with my aunt's friend's daughter and I was being grilled on the life of a lawyer. But that is typical of my family, God love 'em. We ate a ton of food, sang Christmas carols, and did our gift exchange. This could be the first year where both Mr. P and I got kick ass Christmas gifts in the exchange. Mr. P got a basket full of beer and The 40 Year Old Virgin on DVD (if you haven't seen it - go out NOW and rent it - hilarious!) and I received a beautful beaded purse.

I, of course, drank too much wine slush and ended up with a serious headache the next morning, but that is okay. There's no headache that a breakfast casserole can't fix. The fam opened their gifts and let me just say that my mom ROCKS! She gave me the yummy Philosophy Gingerbread Man set from Sephora, and a cashmere sweater, and a black pashmina, and Sideways on DVD and some books and all sorts of other stuff. Yep, she's the coolest.

Another bright spot in my weekend was getting to see my best friend from HS, Sarah. She was the maid of honor in my wedding. The great thing about S and I is that, we can go for months and months w/o talking and yet, when we get together - it is like no time passed, and we are still performing in the Decatur Young Park Singers and flirting with Millikin guys and eating chicken fingers at Perkins at midnight. It is a truly great feeling. And what is even better is that she is back in town after living on the east coast doing a nannying gig...and that her new job is going to bring her to my town every couple of months! YAY!!!!

Overall - excellent weekend...wish I could have spent a little more time with my mom, but, now that she is retired, I am sure we will be able to find more time to be together!

I hope everyone else had a great holiday weekend :)

**At our gift exchange, one of the gifts was wrapped in an extremely large bag that said "Ho Ho Ho" all over it...my very classy husband (along with my very classy uncles) began calling it the "Ho Bag" - as in "Hey, Holly- pick the Ho bag...." Nice.