In a better-late-than-never post, I thought it would be a good idea to debrief our holiday season. Charlie, as usual, was spoiled rotten this year by everyone we know. His loot barely fit in the car to make it home on the 26th.

Among our favorite items were the super cool new roadster that Charlie received from his Uncle Jim and Aunt Lori. He is just barely able to touch his feet to the ground, but believe me as soon as he can, there’ll be no stopping him [from running over the dog].

With the ongoing mission of limiting the amount of Chinese-made toys in our house, we were thrilled that he received the Plan Parking Garage from his Oma and Opa. The Garage is said to be aged three and up, but after spending countless hours playing with the display model at Oma’s store, it was clear that Charlie needed one all his own. In addition he received many of the vehicle accessories to go along with the garage and now we have brightly colored wooden cars scattered throughout the house.

Of course you can’t go wrong with a few sets of Duplos for our resident tower builder. Although I highly recommend making sure they are all picked up at the end of each play session so you don’t inadvertently step on one during a late night trip down the stairs–ow! SONUVA!

As for the rest of the family, we all made out pretty well. Unfortunately in all the excitement of this being Charlie’s first Christmas to really participate in all the madness, I totally neglected to do anything for the dog. Luckily he still has some fans out there and Jon’s family had a stocking ready and waiting for him when we arrived at their house. He also received an edible George Bush dog biscuit from Jim and Lori, which he devoured.

Jon and I added to our growing DVD collection with a few seasons of some great shows, including 30 Rock. I will give it two thumbs up and recommend that if you start watching with episode one, you may want to allow yourself a spare 8 hours to watch the entire season. We also got Bourne Ultimatum and Superbad which were both enjoyed as well.

buy an iPod or we’ll play this
Feist song until your ears bleed.

As I suspected, we once again fell prey to Apple and their incessant advertising. Who can resist walking around everywhere with white wires hanging from their ears? What I really wanted was a sparkling new iPhone, but for some reason Jon thinks that is an indulgence that I don’t need. If anyone can please convince him otherwise, I’d be uber appreciative. Not that I don’t appreciate the Nano that I received, I really do. It is just the iPhone is like a Nano, an ‘interweb’ browser and a telephone all in one; meaning I wouldn’t have to call him from the car on my lousy old cell phone asking him to google things for me anymore. A win-win, if you ask me.

So that is our retail holiday in a nutshell. A shopping hiatus in now in full effect and may be until Christmas 2009. Thanks to everyone for all the great gifts, but more importantly for all the fun times spent with family and friends. Happy New Year; pass the Ramen.