The dreaded question

Happy belated Turkey Day, everyone! I've officially gotten past my first holiday away from home. It was weird, I tell ya! One of my students had to REMIND me to call my family on Thanksgiving. I simply forgot about it! It was just another Thursday of just another week. But I hope all of your Thanksgivings were relaxing and very memorable! The only "exciting" thing that happened on that day was that my mom found out I'm coming home for Christmas!! So I guess I can post about it now. The secret is out!!

Ever since September 30, me and my brother have been working on getting me home for a surprise visit at Christmas. And 3 weeks before I'm scheduled to fly in....the secret's out! And at the fault of no one, really! My mom happened to be looking at one of my brother's websites, which just HAPPENED to have a note from a friend saying "Hey Josh! Your sister told me she was flying in on the 20th...". Ouch. The funnier part, though, is that she wanted to turn the surprise around on me and show up at the airport without me knowing she knew!! Ha! Unfortunately for her, I'm flying in on a Wednesday night, and it just wouldn't be convenient for a preacher and his wife not to show up at church that night!! Haha...oh well...

So I'll be spending two weeks in a new city in North Carolina, simply because I love my family. Awwwww.

Speaking of Christmas...there is a particular part of the season that just drives me crazy! And we're ALL familiar with it...we've all asked it...we've all had to answer it. It's the dreaded question that most people try to get away with answering "Nothing!!" or, better yet "Anything will be fine!". Yes...it's THAT question. "What do you want for Christmas?". You begin attempting to answer that question from Thanksgiving on (if not before!). And the problem is not necessarily in the question...but in the answer. For if you tell what you TRULY want...there's no way you're actually going to get it! And if you don't say anything at all...then you're bound to get something you will have to smile politely about, and then never use again. Or sometimes the problem might be that you don't know whether to tell multiple people you want the same thing (in hopes of actually getting it from one of them!), or tell only one person a specific thing you want, with the underlying knowledge that you might not to get it at all. It's a complicated process, really!! After the age of approximately 15/16, it becomes increasingly difficult to not only answer that question, but get answers from people when you ask that question!! I wish each individual that asked that question had a clear budget written across their head, so you understand the limitations of what you can tell them you want. *sigh* I love the holidays.

And by the way...before you even ask...I want puzzlebooks for Christmas. English variety puzzlebooks!! Can't have too many of those, can you?? :)