It's not quite 5am, local time. I woke up at around 4 to go to the bathroom, and haven't been able to go back to sleep.

A few years ago, that would've been because I was so excited. Now, it's just that my brain started churning and I can't shut it up. I'd rather be excited.

The plan, when we came up, was that we'd spend Christmas morning with Matt's mom and his brother and sister, and then in the afternoon (probably after Penny's nap, which has been running late while we're here -- she actually managed to climb out of the playpen yesterday when she didn't want to sleep) we'd move to his grandparents house so the rest of Matt's family can have some time with us.

Jill is making a Christmas dinner. She said she was planning to have it early in the day, like lunchtime. But Matt's sister and her husband aren't even coming over until one. I'm betting dinner won't go on the table until at least two.

And then his brother has gotten tied up with his wife's family, it sounds like, and he couldn't promise they'd be here until at least five. Jill really wants to have the whole bunch of us together to open presents, and I can empathize, but we've already told Matt's grandparents that we'd be at their place in time for dinner, and their usual gift-opening session, which is right after dinner.

So this is putting Matt in a sticky situation, and he's going to have to figure out who we're going to disappoint, and any way you slice it, he's going to be disappointed. I wish I could help him, but there's really nothing I can do.

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Anyway, we had a really nice Christmas Eve. We had to wake Penny up from her nap in order to get to Rachael and Rimas' place on time, and she was pretty cranky for a while, but I think the car ride soothed her. That, and the eight or so graham crackers she ate on the trip.

So the deal is, Rimas is Lithuanian. Well, really, his parents are, but he was brought up with these traditions. Including a tradition of a massive Christmas Eve dinner, with all the family and friends you can gather. In addition to us, they also had Rimas' father, sister, two aunts, and an uncle. At one point, I think the guest list was up to some eighteen people, but by the time we got there, the table was set for the eleven of us.

It's a meatless meal (though seafood is allowed) with twelve courses (my hat's off to Rach for doing that much cooking!). There are a number of really wonderful traditions, like a communal breaking and sharing of bread, and a scatter of straw under the tablecloth by which you tell fortunes, and an apple... (If you followed the link, I should say that we didn't follow all those traditions strictly. For one thing, we had more fun than the link says we should have had. Also, Rachael explained to us some of the pre-Christian meanings to the traditions -- like the twelve dishes symbolizing the months of the year rather than the twelve apostles -- but it's 5:20am, and I left my glasses upstairs and don't want to do that much research right now.)

Penny, of course, didn't want to sit at the table for the whole meal, so Matt and I spent most of it taking turns eating while we followed her around the apartment. But she wasn't fussy -- she was just exploring and playing. It wasn't her fault that we didn't want her to break their stuff or her head. (To be fair, Rachael and Rimas' apartment was far more toddler-friendly than Jill's house, in terms of the number of breakables set within Penny's reach. But it did have a fairly steep flight of stairs that Penny wanted to play on. A lot.)

Anyway, she was really good and happy and cheerful for the whole visit, even though we didn't leave until after nine. She charmed the pants off everyone (except Rachael and Rimas' cat, who hissed every time Penny came near her -- Penny thought she was laughing, and found it hysterical). She was so flat exhausted by the time we finally got home that Matt managed to carry her inside, get her shoes and coat off, and put her in bed without waking her up.

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Well, it's 5:30 now, so I guess I'll post this and attempt to go back to bed. Penny's been waking up around 7 while we're here, though as late as she got to sleep last night, I'm hoping she'll sleep in a bit.

Merry Christmas, everyone!