Is it just me, or did it really not feel like Christmas this year? Well I guess that's not completely true. It was good and fun and neat, and it's been a long time since there was the "magic" of Christmas like when we were kids. Things change when we all grow up, and I guess I grew up. :)
All told though, once I got out of work on Christmas Eve things were pretty decent. Work itself sucked. :P Well, not totally. My boss really liked my last project and told me I did a great job and I'm awesome and he was really impressed. So that was neat. :) But still, the principle of the thing... actually being stuck at work on Christmas Eve, even if it was only for 4 hours, ya know what I mean? Missed breakfast with the fam... but, it's probably about time we evolved away from the McDonald's tradition anyway. Hehe. Although you have to admit it's unique. :)
Anyways, after work I went to Joe's for some presents with his family. They seemed to like the ornaments I gave them, especially his sister which surprised me somewhat, but she seemed so enamored with it that I was actually pretty touched. Hers was the kind of reaction that you like to get when someone opens a present from you. :) Anyway I was somewhat nervous giving them all Christmas presents but I think it was a success. :) Haha, after I wrapped them I wasn't sure how to address the gift tags to Joe's parents, and I actually ended up remaking them -- boyfriend's parents are tough, ya know? Like, do I call them "Mr. and Mrs. G"? Or by their first names? Or what? "Mr. and Mrs. G" seemed too formal, since I've seen them on almost a daily basis for the past six months. I ended up digging out the cards they sent me for graduation and my birthday to see how they were signed. ;) Stupid? Somewhat. :) But you want to make a good impression. I should have done what Joe did, and just not labeled the gifts at all. ;)
After a brief time at their house, I kidnapped their son and made him drive me to Cazenovia. :) It was nice not having to make the trip all by myself though, and I love car trips with Joe because we always have good conversations. :) We got home in time for lasagne and then peppermint stick ice cream with mom's homemade hot fudge, and of course Gram came over and my cousin Jay came for ice cream. :) I stole a dress of my sister's for church (she's in Florida and since she left it behind I figure it's fair game). Church itself went pretty smoothly. No huge deal made out of the fact that I didn't take Communion. Actually my aunt smiled at me after she received and we were standing up to let them back in the pew. For whatever reason that made me feel better... I had been a little nervous about it, after what happened the last time. But nobody said anything.
Church on Christmas Eve always ends with the main lights out, the congregation singing "Silent Night" and holding lighted candles. I have always loved that. :) After the service I got to hug a lot of people and introduce Joe to some folks he'd never met, and we did a snow dance with Kathy on the front steps before we went home. It was nice. :) Then we went home and went to bed. :)
I woke up around 7 on Christmas morning and forced myself not to get up until about 7:30. I was rather impressed that I woke up so early; in previous years it's been Kristie's job to wake ME up, but with her gone this year I had to step up to the plate. So I went bouncing into Joe's room at the crack of dawn and he I'm certain would rather have had a few more hours of sleep. ;) But obligingly he got up and followed me upstairs so I could show him his Christmas stocking and then we made Whirligig Cinnamon Rolls (another weirdo tradition) out of the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook that was my dad's as a child. :) Stockings, breakfast, then presents, that's how we do Christmas at our house. Followed by a flurry of phone calls (my sister, my dad's sister, and of course my friend Sarah who had to tell me every single thing she got, as always). :) Then we all piled down to my grandfather's for dinner and some more presents with the extended fam. Next year if I'm there I think I'll pull out a board game or something... all the cousins are grown up now and most are out of college and we no longer have anything in common... the small talk didn't really go anywhere. Which wasn't really anybody's fault or anything. It was just kinda... "So here we are... we're all doing completely different things now... now what." Subdued. It was nice though. The aunts were pretty much as cheerful as ever at least. I think next year will be better. Once my one cousin is no longer the "family secret that everybody knows but nobody's allowed to talk about it". You know how it is.
After that we went home and watched "Chicago" and then played a rousing game of Scrutineyes with my parents (which daddy won, of course) and then discussed our plans for Friday, and talked about the day, and went to bed.
Friday I woke up with cramps and Joe woke up with a fever. We took Miss Molly (oops, that should be Mrs. Molly) out to breakfast/lunch and the guys at the next two tables over were having a very loud conversation about religion. Mahyee was a bit quieter than usual, maybe because Joe came along but Grant was too lazy to join us. ;) I'm not sure. I worry about her sometimes.
Due to illness all plans for Friday went totally ka-put. We came home and watched "Finding Nemo" on DVD, which I got from Joe's parents. My darling sweet Joe gave me a DVD player for Christmas! :) He also gave me Avril Lavigne's live concert DVD... which happens to have been filmed in Buffalo -- as in, we were actually AT this concert! How cool is that!! :D So after Nemo we watched the concert and tried to see ourselves in the crowd... however, we were distracted by dinner in the middle of it and thus it will require further scrutiny at a later time. ;) At the very least, we know we were there. It's kinda cool to watch and remember some of the different things that were going on. :)
My poor honey was feverish and sickly so we didn't end up heading out to Syracuse for the evening like we originally planned. Instead I bored him with our family photo albums and tucked him into bed. So that was a little bit sucky. Vacations, even mini-ones like that, are really a crappy time to be sick. I'd rather be sick during the work week. But then again, I do get sick days.
Saturday we took Mommy and Daddy out to lunch at the Lincklaen House (well, the Seven Stone Steps, with is the bar downstairs). YUM. :) And then, I finally got ahold of Lainie, so we trucked down to visit her for a couple of hours (I hadn't seen her in probably two years). And then we had to drive back. :/ And of course I am too much of an idiot to have packed my stuff up ahead of time so we didn't get on the road until like 6:30. I always do that. I'll pack FOR a trip plenty of time in advance, but coming back, always last minute. I have too much fun pretending I don't have a care in the world. :P Ah well. Eventually Joe will get me straightened out. ;) We had a nice drive back Saturday night, good conversation as always, and then Joe opened up the rest of his Christmas gifts from his family, and then it was bedtime, because he had to work at 7am Sunday.
Asher, as it turns out, survived three days on his own without even destroying my apartment, though he was starved for attention by the time we got back. He hasn't been letting me out of his sight the past two days and yowls when I shut him out of my room at night, and even when I'm in the shower. But he seems to be recovering, and I got him a new catnip toy for Christmas yesterday which he liked so much that I think the first thing he did was pee on it. Joy. So we played with that while Joe was working, and then I went to Joe's for Mass and dinner, and then we came back to set up my new (old) TV, which my parents offered me from their basement when I got the DVD player, since I've been insisting for months that I didn't want a DVD player until I had a bigger TV... little knowing that Joe had already bought the DVD... so now I'm afraid he thinks I don't like it. :( I love it though! We got it all set up and it's so pretty and shiny and silver! :D Hehe... I'm such a retard... but my favorite thing about it (well, obviously besides the fact that I can watch DVD's on it! :P) is the disc tray (whatever the technical term for that is). You know, when you hit the "Eject" button and it glides out all smoothly and neatly, and you put the disc in and it glides back in just as nicely. Not like tapes, which are all bulky and mechanical and make all kinds of noise. There's just something about the DVD that screams "I'm a grown-up toy". :) I've got I think 5 or 6 movies on DVD to mess with now, plus of course I still have my tapes. I'm glad we've got the VCR and DVD both hooked up... and my new 20 inch TV is SUCH an improvement over the dinky 13 inch. (I can't imagine hooking up the DVD to that little thing... I would have had to go buy myself a new TV, hehe.) :) We watched "Maverick" last night and it was quite wonderful. So yeah, I've joined the twenty-first century. I finally have a cd-rw drive on my computer, and now a DVD player. I'm moving up in the world. :D
Well... This is a really long entry and it's almost time for me to go eat lunch. And make a couple of phone calls. :P And I ought to be working, since the boss came up with another feature for me to add to my catalog/store thingy. There's more I'd like to talk about but it'll have to wait, since this turned into a "here's what I did this weekend" blog instead of a "here's what I think about ______" blog. But most of them are like that. ;) This is why no reader of my blog is going to be contacting me and offering me a book deal. :) Hehe. Anyways, I just wanted to share that I had a lovely happy Christmas and a great, if short, time at home with the fam. And I didn't get to see all the people I intended to visit when I was there, but... well, when I come home I don't want to spend my whole time there running from place to place. Next time I'm going to announce it and have THEM all come visit ME. :)
Yeah... I'm really leaving now. ;) Honest!
Merry Christmas!