New Years Day

After getting home at 130 from our New Years party I was hoping the kids would sleep in. As usual my daughter was up around 730 but I managed to get her to stay in my bed and snuggle for a little while before we got up.

Once everyone was up I wrapped the last of the Christmas gifts (to/from my parents). They arrived on the 27th but we delayed the gifts as one of the sweaters I ordered on their behalf didn't arrive til the 28th and I needed to find something for my Dad, who like most Dads is hard to shop for.

The kids all got new sweaters and slippers and then a Lincoln Log set for my youngest daughter and a Lego set for my oldest and a Duplo Cars set for my son.

I got a book and a hair towel for my Mom and the new Tom Clancy and a Double Shutter game for my Dad. I was hoping he hadn't read the Tom Clancy since he usually gets books as soon as they come out. Turns out it had just come out that week, and he had just seen it in the NYT Book Review and wanted to get it.

The kids spent most of the rest of the day playing with their new toys.

After getting the kids to bed, we opened a bottle of Champagne with my parents and watched the Vienna Philharmonic New Years concert. As always a great concert. None of us were familiar with the conductor. One of the pieces they played was by a Danish composer called HC Lundbye and it was composed to sound like a train. They even had the percussionists wear conductors hat, and instead of the usual ballet dancers they showed shots of an old fashioned steam engine (maybe the oldest) winding its way through the Austrian countryside.

Overall it was a good performance and I've enjoyed that that this has become a tradition of ours. The only downside was that when it was all over my Dad said that he was upset that he had forgotten about the performance, and I didn't understand what he meant at first. Turns out that until I told him we had recorded it and suggested we watch it, he had forgotten that the concert even happened. This is something he has watched every year for a long time, and this year he had forgotten all about it. Not sure if that's another symptom of Alzheimer's or what, but it made me sad to see him sad.