We spent Christmas with the in-laws this year, which was perfectly pleasant. Casey's parents recently moved to a retirement community about an hour north of us, and they have lots of new friends in the neighborhood. They invited a bunch of old people to Christmas dinner and it was a very noisy affair. Picture a half dozen drunks with hearing aids trying to talk over one another. After dinner Casey, Jane, and I took a ride in his parents' golf cart. Everybody in this community has a golf cart and they've got special roads for them and everything. Jane loves it because she isn't strapped into a carseat.

We sang as many Christmas carols as we could remember (a short list) and at the end of each one Jane would clap and shout "yay!" Our first attempt to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer fizzled out when we realized that neither of us could remember the order of the verses. I had to sit quietly for a minute and dredge up memories from first grade, when I learned that song. I'm continually surprised by Casey's willingness to sing kid songs and do any other silly thing for the benefit of our baby. I can't remember my dad doing any of those things, because he was more concerned with being cool. Casey's number one priority is making the baby smile.

Upon our return we talked more with his parents and their other guests, then put the baby to bed and escaped to the movie theatre. Casino Royale was really good. I thought Daniel Craig looked old and ugly at the beginning, but by the end he was the sexiest son-of-a-bitch since Brad Pitt in Troy.

Slightly amusing anecdote: Casey's hair is really long now, long enough to sit on (I wish he would cut it back to shoulder-length because it looks nicer and is easier to manager, but he's just in love with every inch). It was hanging over the back of his seat acting as Geezer Repellant for a while. One old dude sat down behind Casey for about two seconds before switching seats, and I finally tucked his hair up behind his shoulder, since the theatre was filling up.

The day after Christmas I met my Mom halfway to Niceville so that she could take Jane for a week. I needed a break from my terrible toddler and some time to concentrate on sending out resumes.

This year was a huge improvement over Christmas 2005. Last year Casey's mom had a month-long breakdown because we weren't going to see them on Christmas day. I gave everyone plenty of notice that I intended to spend Jane's First Christmas in Niceville with my mother. Casey was coming with us, of course, because he wasn't about to miss this time with his daughter, and he left all the planning up to me. I told his mom a couple of months in advance, thinking she could make plans to go to Colorado and visit her other granddaughter. But that was the first Christmas in 28 years that Casey did not spend at home with his parents and his mom just couldn't handle it and we kept on fighting about it over and over.

I wasn't about to give in, because I didn't want to set a bad precedent. I am the decision-making head of this family, and while I'm willing to take Casey's vote into consideration, nobody else gets a say. I've spent too many Christmases bouncing from house to house, mom's to dad's to stepmom's and my various boyfriend's parents' houses, too, and I'm not going to do that any more. I didn't speak to Casey's mom for a couple of months after that argument, but now we are okay. What I was most angry about last year was the way she tried to go around me and guilt-trip Casey. She wanted us to drive five hours on Christmas day so we could have dinner with them!

That's one of the amazing things about family. You can have huge fights and bounce back into a good relationship, in less than a year.