Dana Daily

New Years Eve is a funny holiday for me. Some years I'm dying to go out and celebrate in some non-crazy way. Other years, I couldn't care less. This was a couldn't care less kind of year, and Sal seemed fine with that as well. The madness and stress of the holiday caught up with me, I think, and I just didn't want to plan one more thing or do one more thing. Plus, it's been ridiculously cold -- as in single digits temperatures for a week with no "warm-up" in sight. We stayed home, had a little wine, watched tv until midnight, and then went to bed.

Sarah and Emmy had asked me what time they could wake Sal and I up Christmas morning. Knowing that they would be going their dad's at 10am, I wanted to give them enough time to open gifts and enjoy them for a little while before having to leave. However, I also need my sleep. We agreed on 7am and promptly at 7am, they showed up. This was the first Christmas Seth actually got into, which made it fun too. Santa brought Sarah a cooking class, a new FitBit, and a few other small things. Emmy received new light up Sketchers (which you can see her trying on in the picture above). Seth loves his new work bench, but his favorite gift was probably the train set my sister got him. I gave Sal a new leather wallet, a few t'shirts, and an Art of Shaving Kit (which he gets every year for either his birthday or Christmas). He got us tickets to see  Up and Away  at the  Caberet Theater  next month, which will include lunch. He also gave me a gift card to White House Black Market...

I don't know if we've ever had a busier Christmas Eve. After a late night at the Italian Christmas party in Steubenville last night, we were up bright and early to prepare for the (short) drive to my sister's for Anthony's first birthday party. He turned 1 at 1:21pm this afternoon and that's about the time we cut into the cake. We left after he opened gifts about 2:30 because I wanted Seth to get a nap in prior to "midnight" Mass. Our parish has midnight Mass at 9pm on Christmas Eve due to the aging congregation and a priest shortage. This year the girls were asked to wear traditional Croatian dresses, which belong to the parish, and participate in the procession which places baby Jesus in the manger. The children come into the church from the doors of the sacristy on either side of the altar and form two lines as they walk down the center aisle of the church. The lines eventually end up opposite each other on the side aisle of the church and the lit...

I was really disappointed in our photo session in Sedona over the summer, so I didn't love our Christmas cards this year. In fact, this is the only picture I chose to keep from our entire one hour session. It's a cute picture, but I wanted more of Sedona's gorgeous scenery included, the red rocks, the amazing cliffs. Ahh well, at least we had cactus. I do like the design of this card and the sentiment. I have next year to redeem myself, but for this year it is what it is. Since all of us are officially on Christmas break, or off for the holiday, here it is. Merry Christmas!

Sal's birthday was December 1, but we postponed our official celebration until this evening. I bought tickets to Straight No Chaser back in May. He loves SNC, and I enjoy them as well. We weren't sure how much time we'd have for dinner in between getting home from work and the show, so we didn't make reservations or any concrete plans. As it turned out, Shana showed up right at 6 and we were ready to go. After considering several options, we decided to hit Primanti's in The Strip. It's been a long time since we stopped in there, and it was delicious. I always order the double egg and cheese and Sal ordered something with salami. Straight No Chaser put on a great show, and it was nice to have a mid-week date night. They took an audience picture toward the end, and while you can't see us, it's still fun to know we're out there somewhere (first tier, left side actually). Despite some crappy road conditions in Pittsburgh, thanks to afternoon/ev...