Grr...the holidays

Christmas, ahhh, Christmas. Being a military family our Christmas comes in phases. First there are the endless phone calls from family far and near about what to buy. What do we do? I always go to Wal-mart's online wishlist with my kids so they can shop and create a list of all the things they so desire. When I was a kid we'd get out the JCPenney catalog and just circle everything we wanted, not so anymore. Everything today is online and it's wonderful as far as I'm concerned. It saves me from having to go down the list and dividing up what each kid wants for each side of the family. So we email their lists from Wal-mart and it's all good. Then I let each side know what the other has gotten so there are no repeats. In the past we've always gone home for Christmas, but this year we moved to Texas and we told everyone WAY in advance that we would not be home for the holidays so they could plan for either shipping or traveling. Turns out that they all wanted to come to our house instead! Now, don't get me wrong, I love my family, but OH MY GOD they all are coming to our house. We have yet to find the perfect distance from our respective in-laws. When you live too close, they come all the time in short little bursts of misery. When you live too far they come for weeks at a time. We need to be in the middle somewhere so they come very little and stay very short. Close enough so that they can come and pick up the kids and take them to THEIR house if'n that be what they desire. Ok, well I gotta go cause my husband is lettin' me know that I need to go to bed cause family is arriving tomorrow for a week and there'll be no play for us for that long. What a man.