After a rough start, and a lot of being a Christmas ping pong, this holoiday is acutally turning out pretty well. My sisters mad an effort to make Christmas morning calm (by haivng fewer presents) and it was oh so much better. We're still all missing the clamness and game playing and family that only comes from being away form our respective homes and at our missed Grandmother's house. There is just a certain flow one gets bey not being required to be in a place for a few days.

The hit toy this year was given to me by one of my sisters. She though it would be a cool trinket, play with for a few minutes and then exhasted, but it wasn't. It's a little top (called i-top, spin to win!) that uses the row of LEDs and physical moment to display letters. So you spin this thing, and it displays text. It has several modes, including a "magic eighball" mode. It also has a "how many revolutions" mode, and all half the peopel there spend hours, just takign turns trying to get the high score. The sad thing is I have no talent for it, so the high score is now far far out of my reatch, but my brother-in-law started to refer to the ypnotised group of adults just watchign the numbers count up as the "cult of the top."

We all appricated the technology, shurnk doen into a childs toy. and to top it all off 1) it's the best balanced top I've ever played with 2) it folds for placemnte into a pocket.
It's an amazingly well designed little toy.

Oh, and hazelnut turtles ROCK!