Today was Christmas Eve. We were in NH visiting with Allison’s parents Dan and Marcia. Her grandparent’s John and Eva came up and Allison’s brother Nate and his wife Sarah were also here. This morning Allison and Marcia went to breakfast with one of Allison’s friend’s Tina and Dan went down to MA to pick up John and EVa. I stayed at the house and got some blogging done. The family has been pretty supportive of the whole PayPerPost blogging stuff. I posted my daily allotment of blogs for PayPerPost plus some reviews on FlatWater Bookstore and a couple of posts here on The BenSpark.

I know I made the aStore with Amazon and the FlatWater Bookstore was going to go away. But I realized that I had two blogs and that meant that I could now blog 4 PayPerPost posts each day. So on the FlatWater Bookstore I have a post that reviews a movie, a product or a DVD that I choose form Amazon and sometimes a story about why I like that particular product and in between I have my PayPerPost posts. I also realized that I can only earn $500.00 a month and so have to be careful not to go over that amount or else I have to get a Premium PayPal account. And that means that PayPal would get part of every transaction. I don’t want that to happen so I have been keeping track of my earnings each month to make sure that I get as close to $500.00 and not over.

Once everyone came back to the house we hung around and had some hors devours and I went and got gas from the Stop and Shop (Details of that adventure are posted in this message.) and Then Nate and Sarah came over. about 3:45 we piled into the two cars and headed to Piccola for dinner. Piccola is a fine Italian restaurant in Manchester, NH, right on Elm Street. They have been in business for a few years now and no matter how much they expand the business they still do not have enough room because there are so many people who want to eat there. We had a 4:00pm reservation so we got in before the rush and were even able to park out front. That is a rarity. I had a very tasty Lasagna (one of my all time favorite meals) and I ordered a Lemon Drop martini. Usually they are very much like drinking lemonade that you know has some liquor in it. However this drink was made with limoncello and it was STRONG. While at the restaurant I took this picture.

On the way home we passed the Photo-A-Day picture of Santa on his chopper. That has to be my favorite front lawn decorations ever. I went searching to buy one on Ebay. I found one for $39.00 plus 19.95 shipping. Not too shabby. Then I found a Santa Mickey on a motorcycle with Pluto in the sidecar for $59.99. I found a different one of Santa on a motorcycle too. Upon further investigation I see that the inflatable Santa on a Chopper is available at Wal-Mart. But I couldn’t find it at Wal-Mart online. I will have to keep my eyes open for an after Christmas Sale or something.

When we got home we exchanged gifts. We all had a lot of fun giving each other gifts. Nate and Sarah were awesome in their gift choices with a movie night package for us as well as a Quesadilla maker. We are very excited. Dan and Marcia helped me out with some money towards one of the toys I will be buying myself int he near future. I haven’t decided which one to get first. John and Eva got some scratch cards and Eva had a good time scratching them off. No big winners this time.

Clyde got into the excitement and tried to help us open our gifts as well.

Since Dan and Marcia are moving to Florida, we thought it would be nice to get them the Entertainment Guide for South Florida. Well Nate and Sarah had the same idea.

Dan got some nice black shoes to compliment the pair of brown ones he already had in the same style. I understand that. I too buy two of the same thing when I find what I like and what works for me.

After we exchanged gifts we had dessert, more than 8 people could possibly eat was laid out before us. There was bread pudding, apple crisp, cookies from a cookie swap, chocolate pie and various other things. We were still fairly stuffed from Piccola so we went light on the desserts.

After Dessert we watched the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then TBS began running 24 hours of A Christmas Story. We watched the first showing and now it is time for bed. TBS.com has some fun stuff about A Christmas Story including e-cards and a gift guide quiz.

A Christmas Story is based on the works of Jean Shepherd

If the books are anything like the narration of the movie (Which was done by Shepherd) I think I will love them.

A pretty full day all in all. Merry Christmas Everyone!