I'm Back! Part One

Hi everybody! I'm back from Christmas break now. I had a great time over the last two weeks or so. I went with my momma down to Tennessee (what momma calls "my ancestral home"), and daddy joined us later. I got to go on an airplane! That was sorta cool. Lots of things to see, and all of these funny motions. It seemed like we were going real fast. It was lots of fun, until my ears started feeling weird near takeoff. When we got to Memphis, we went to my grandmama and grandpapa's house in Memphis. One thing I noticed about Tennessee is that it is cold, and there was all of this white stuff on the ground. I don't know much about geography, but I get the sense that Tennessee must be a very cold place, like near the Arctic Circle or something.

We had a good time in Memphis, although I had trouble sleeping. I missed home. One thing that was cool was seeing where mama grew up. We even stayed in her old room. I got to see pictures of her as a little baby and everyone said that I look just like her when she was a baby.

We then went to a place called Dyersburg, which is smaller than Memphis. Still cold though. It was interesting, although I met this strange little creature. No, not cousin Katie, but something they called a dog. His name is Fulmer, and he was sort of like a cat, but not really. He liked to make these loud noises. And I saw him staring at me a lot, sort of in the same way Katie does. It mostly happened when someone was holding me, like my other grandparents, D-Dawg and Jo Jo Dancer. I also tried to play some with cousin Katie, but she refused to play with me. She wouldn't even give me a kiss on the cheek, like she did everyone else. What, is she too good for me? Women! I just can't understand them sometimes.

We then went to a Christmas Eve service in Martin. They sang a bunch of songs, Katie did a stinkie (quite a good one, which I had to grudgingly admire; everyone within 5 rows caught a whiff of it), and then they did something called lighting candles. With something called fire. They gave one of these candles to everyone to hold, but they didn't give me one! I know I don;t have complete control of my motor functions yet, but give me a break. It looked like a lot of fun, and I had to miss out. I'm still sorta bummed about that. Oh well -- maybe next year.

We then did something really weird. There were all of these boxes wrapped in all sorts of shiny paper. It all looked very nice. And then everyone proceeded to rip the nice shiny paper off of the boxes. I was horrified. I kept saying, "What are you people doing? You are destroying the pretty paper!" But it came out all wrong, saying like "AHHHHHHH OOOOO!" Everyone then turned to me and said, "How cute!" Ugh. I really need to master this whole talking thing and soon. It is getting really annoying for people to not understand me. Anyhoo, there were things inside of these boxes, like clothes, and toys, and nicknacks. So then I understood a little more why people were ripping the paper off. But then a question arose -- why in the world would someone put such pretty paper on these boxes if people were just going to rip it off again? that's sorta dumb if you ask me. Sorta of the same thing with taking a bath (which mama and daddy give me every night). I'm just going to get dirty again. What's the point?

Anyway, there was no need to let all of that pretty paper to go to waste. I grabbed some, and played with it, and even tasted it. Yeech. Not very tasty. But fun to look at. I got some other stuff too. Some cool toys. But the coolest thing was finally meeting Dewey Daddy. He is what is called my great grandfather. He seemed really cool. Sort of an older version of D-Dawg. We played together some. I liked him a lot. I also met Aunt Nan, Megan, her fiance (whatever that is), Jeremy, and Angie. They all seemed nice. Then everyone ate. Pretty soon afterwards, we all went home. I was exhausted, so I went right to sleep. I'll tell you about Christmas Day and beyond sometime soon.