A Tolkien Christmas

A very nice Christmas this year.
Generally I get a very bad case of the Holiday Blues each year from Thanksgiving until January.
This year I've fought with that, and done better than previous years.
Had my wife's parents and one of her (5 siblings) brothers visit for almost a week, and it went very well. It was nice having a smaller clan gathering than the rather larger and much noisier and chaotic gatherings. And we enjoyed being the hosts. I think they were a little bored, but the idea was they could relax, and we had lots of pleasant talk time.
Meanwhile, on the materialistic side I had a nice score this year! ;-)
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Some much needed jeans from my mother as well as a great 4 in 1 parka (with reversible zip out fleece liner, etc. good for all weather situations, very nice in preparation for hardcore outdoors adventures I'll be partaking in during the course of getting as many certifications as possible (such as "Leave No Trace" and "Search And Rescure" and others) related to recreational therapy and outdoors industry. Also a nice fleece? sweatshirt too.
Wife gave me some nice thick (woolen?) socks and of course Peter Jackson's Return of the King Extended Edition DVD (50 minutes additional footage).
She also very kindly gave me a BUNCH of much needed Tolkien books:
Two by Tom Shippey: J.R.R. Tolkien - Author of the Century, and The Road to Middle-Earth.
Another one is one I've wanted for a long time: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, covers a lot, but related to getting MerpCon together for this Summer it has lots of his personal explanations of what he was meaning or trying to acheive with his writings, great insight.
Also received a hardbound edition of Unfinished Tales. I had a softcover version since around 1980, but it's severaly battered, so this was a nice "upgrade". ;-)
Additionally received the 50th anniversary leatherbound (suede?) and gilded Lord of the Rings (sweeeeet.)
And last but not least, and a total surprise since I didn't even know about it is "Letters From Father Christmas" by J.R.R. Tolkien. These are the actual full color photos and items inside envelopes with his replies to his children's letters to Father Christmas, with his replies as Father Christmas to them, I just think that's so great of him to do that for his kids, I wish I'd been doing that with mine. Maybe try to start such a tradition next year. ;-)
I also received a double CD edition of Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock from my in-laws.
And apparently there was also stuff from my sister, but as of December 27th, 2004 it still hasn't arrived.
Kids of course had a great "haul" and a great time, and the big gift my wife and I gave them (with a LOT of asssembly and incredibly heavy beast) was a fullblown very nice Air Hockey table that's been a hit since we've been going to the skating rink a lot just to let them play air hockey for hours at at time (and $0.50 to $1.00 a pop).
Also I bought them some world war 2 plastic model airplanes and paints and glue so i can sit down with them one at a time (quality time) and see if they enjoy that as much as I did as a kid, in this high stimulus video age.
Well, best wishes to everyone and happy holidays!