So another Christmas season has come and gone. The holiday events really started on Saturday, with Thanksgiving 2.0. My parents and another family we were going to have Thanksgiving with were sick on the original day, so my parents prepared a nice turkey dinner. Diana and Allison and I cruised over, and with my aunt also in town, we had a nice evening of all the favorites: turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. The dinner was great, but I have to say that the sandwich the next day might have been best ever.
On Christmas Eve, I had a half-day at work (which is always kind of a joke), and then met up with Diana and Allison again for another nice dinner at my parents, followed by some gift-exchanging. Diana and I made a calendar on Snapfish.com, using pictures of Adam, Diana and Allison as well as Dave, Elaine, and Ben. It came out really well, and made a really nice gift. We gave my aunt a DVD player (along with some DVDs), slingshotting her right into the 1990’s.
Christmas morning, Diana and I woke up and exchanged gifts, and then headed over to Diana’s parents house for more gift exchanging and a delicious brunch. Diana’s mom annually gives us a cool gift: some Monopoly money which we can then distribute as we see fit into some pre-made charity envelopes. She then donates that money for us. (I looked for a Human Fund envelope, but couldn’t find one :). I decided to donate to “One Laptop per Child” (http://laptopgiving.org), which is an organization that produces cheap laptops with specific educational software for kids in poor countries. The concept is trying to answer the question of what would happen if every child were given a tool to learn and explore, as well as access to the worlds informational resources. Seemed pretty cool. I seriously considered supplementing the donation amount in order to get my own XO laptop, but figured I didn’t really have a use for it.
Awkward Christmas Moment: My family and Diana’s family have things called “MIBBs” (Make It Better Bags), which are cloth bags filled with corn kernels. You microwave these puppies (or freeze them), and they stay hot (or cold) for a long time. Great for taking to bed on a cold night. Anyways, Diana’s mom has one that was filled with cherry pits, and supposed to serve the same purpose, only smell like delicious cherries. So, I was talking with Diana’s mom and sister, and wondered if, related to all that, there were other seeds that popped like popcorn when you heated them up. For example, if you heated a cherry pit, would it pop? “Cherry-corn”, I said. “No, wait, that’s not right. Popped cherries!”
Awesome.
Christmas evening, we had my family (mom, dad, and aunt), Diana’s family (mom, dad, Alicia and David, and friend Angela), as well as the Schatzs (mom, dad, Andy). So, a pretty good group. People brought desserts, and we had various hot and cold drinks. It was a lot of fun. At some point, Guitar Hero was broken out (it wasn’t my idea!), and some rocking out ensued.
I learned something about Guitar Hero, I think. Playing a song on Expert isn’t the best way to introduce people to Guitar Hero. In fact, it’s probably a pretty good way to scare people away from trying it. Anyone who might be on the fence about giving it a shot but worried about public humiliation probably will get even more intimidated. I’m going to try to remember that.
I used my “floating holiday” for the day after Christmas, and that was a nice quiet day to decompress a little. The three of us went out on some errands in the morning (a trip to Fry’s to look around, and a trip to Best Buy to return something, and then some lunch). Allison was fun to watch at Fry’s: lots of neat things to look at. At Best Buy, while I was standing in line to return something, she got really spacey, and then I looked down and she had her eyes closed. Just crashed out. That was nice.
That evening, we headed over the Quail Gardens, where they had some holiday stuff set up. Lots of lights around trees, as well as marshmallow roasting and hot drinks and stuff. Most of the lights they had were little LED lights, which were pretty cool. Very bright. They might be pretty cheap to buy now, so I think I’d like to get some for next year.
And that was my Christmas! Hope all yours was good, too.
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