Christmas When you Travel?

(post by Marissa) First, small update on Steve. He has not died, but is studying for finals so has not posted on OUR blog for some time. He was the one that set it up and now I feel like I'm taking over. Anyways, back to my original post.
Preface: My mom goes nuts at Christmas time. Her Christmas cards are similar to novels and she sends one to everyone she has ever met. She bakes for about a week. We give gifts to everyone we possibly know including the UPS man. She even makes us deliver them with a song or two(yes, we had to go Christmas carolling when we were seniors in high school to our friends' houses and deliver little goodies). The whole house is decorated and the outside of our house looks like a forest fire because it's so bright. Christmas eve instead of reading the Christmas story, we had to act it out. Of course I was always Mary, and my brother would be a donkey, which consisted of him bucking me off. Anything you want or she buys after about mid-October is for Christmas, so Christmas morning was a little chaotic with 11 kids and lots of presents. My mom will still not say Santa is not real. "She says if you want to receive, you must believe." So, I guess my mom has a little Christmas spirit and it has passed on to me.

So last year I sent out Christmas cards with a picture of us and a little Christmas story (my mom does it so I do too). Steve did not necessarily agree with sending out cards with pictures of us..He said you only do that when you have kids. Is this true? I thought the 2 of us were a family and people may want to see a picture of us and not just when we have a baby. I think it's proper etiquette to send out cards, am I crazy? I may write Miss Manners about this too. I feel like I have already missed the boat on sending them out as it's December 6th. I have been going back and forth between what I think and what Steve thinks.

Another thing. Steve leaves on Dec. 16th to go to Wyoming. I do not leave until Dec. 21st. We dont want to haul all of our presents to Wyoming just to bring them back so we (really I) don't know what to do. I already know most of my presents because my mom took me shopping a couple of times and bought me stuff. I have not worn a lot of the things. I am in a predicament though. Should Steve wrap these gifts for me and should we have a Christmas before or after Wyoming? Or should we just forget the whole opening presents thing this year because I already know my clothes..I picked them out. My mom also bought Steve a bunch of sweaters but I gave those to him and he's worn them..so there goes part of his Christmas. I know Christmas has a lot more meaning than presents, but I do have fond memories of having everyone watch you open your presents and then of course model your new item.

Should we not do the gift opening this year or should we wrap our stuff for eachother and have our own Christmas?