Christmas Day, part 2

This afternoon/evening, we spent our time and had dinner with Verne and Wanda. They live 8-1/2 miles or so away from town, or about 10 miles from our apartment. We had a pleasant evening -- and I had some turkey.

The drive there and back seemed really long. Now that we've gotten used to 1 to 2 miles at most to get to just about anything we need, driving 10 miles (about 20 minutes) feels like eternity. When I think back, 20 minutes was the shortest commute time between Tigard and Beaverton -- and I'm talking about those rare commutes at 3 or 4 a.m. where all the traffic lights are in my favor.

I think one of our top priorities in locating our permanent home here is something in town, convenient and close to everything we need.

Over the last twelve days, Elise and the kids gave out themed gifts each day according to the Twelve Days of Christmas to our landlady and one of our neighbors in the apartments. I think both of them suspected they were responsible, but everyone on both the giving and receiving ends had fun.

Last evening, we were surprised to find on our doorknob a bag containing anonymous gifts. So this morning, those were the first ones to be opened, and we found little Norwegian figurines, but couldn't for the life of us figure out who left them or why they were given.

The mystery was solved this evening when Elise went to give the twelfth gift to our neighbor. She (the neighbor) had seen little black-haired "gnomes" running around, ringing doorbells, and leaving little gifts outside the front door. So she dropped off a couple of Norwegian gnome figurines, plus a figurine of a dancing pair of male and female gnomes -- in memory of the little Christmas gnomes of 2006.