Quick Christmas entry!
Just a quick overview of my three Christmases. :)
Christmas #1
This was the Saturday before Christmas, at my mom's house, with my mom, my siblings, my grandma, and one of my aunts and cousin. This was her "crafty Christmas," where there were no purchased presents for anybody except Nemo and we all had to make something for everybody. Jacob and I photoshopped pictures of everybody in funny situations, like my mom in her "rocker" Halloween costume photoshopped into a picture backstage with Steven Tyler, and then I decorated plain wooden frames with Sharpies. (I tried to think of something better but it turns out my crafting skills are mostly limited to Sharpies). I want to make some for friends, but I ran out of steam after making so many for family and had to postpone it until after the holidays. Also, I hate mailing things, and rarely see the inside of a post office, so I always procrastinate things that need to be sent. It was a REALLY good idea though, I thought, even though my grandma complained about it. I was irritated that I didn't have any warning that my aunt and cousin would be there, I didn't make them anything so they just had to sit there and mostly watch us open things to each other. They got all of us something, so I don't know what planning snafu occurred, but it made me feel bad. My sister made homemade marshmallows and chocolate dipped spoons and hand painted mugs, which I thought was awesome. Todd made shoe racks, but I already have one, so Jacob and I turned it into a bookshelf. Any surface in our home becomes a bookshelf.
Christmas #2
This was on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, at Jacob's family's house, with his mom, dad, and sister. We drove up to Monument after I got off work on Christmas Eve, had sandwiches for dinner, then went to New Life church in Colorado Springs for a Christmas Eve service. New Life is a huge, mall-sized church; a former pastor had some sort of sex and money scandals and it was nearly ruined but somebody else took over and seems to be doing a decent job with it. Still a bit too big for me, but the Christmas Eve candlelight service was fun - more like a concert than a service, they had some band called Brilliance who did interesting version of Christmas carols that I thought were pretty good. Then we went back and had gluten-free red velvet cake (!!!) and talked until we all went to bed. Christmas morning we got up and opened presents, and I got a lot of good stuff; a really cute purse, gift cards to Outback Steakhouse, Starbucks, Kohl's, and Fandango, and a printer from his parents, a Red Jumpsuit Apparatus CD and Zondervan's illustrated Bible commentary from Jacob, and Big Bang Theory season 2 from his sister. Then we went to go let the dogs run around with Jacob's dad (they have three brittney spaniels, Scout, Duke, and Joe) and I was glad it was not snowing. Then we went to go see the second Hobbit movie with Kester and Cailee, his mom didn't want to go - I hated it, and barely sat through the whole thing, I was so seething with rage. I didn't hate the first one but the second one just...overdid it. And that's a serious understatement. But anyway.
Christmas #3
This was the Saturday after Christmas, at my aunt's house in the mountains, with my dad's side of the family (excluding, of course, my dad himself). We all had Mexican food and did a white elephant, the theme of which was toys and games. I got Legos, and Jacob got a little helicopter thing which doesn't ever succeed in getting off the ground and merely flies around whacking into things like an angry fly. But my uncle Wayne got two helicopters and he gave one to Jacob as we were leaving, and that one works, which was very nice of him. People also decorated cookies, but since I couldn't eat the cookies and have no patience for frosting and hate the taste of it anyway I spent my time talking to various family members, playing with the helicopters, and following the Neemlet around playing with him and trying to convince him that "Not the Mama" is a suitable alternative in the short term to Mama (he remained unconvinced). It was fun, but the drive home was an absolute nightmare. It started snowing, and while not a lot actually accumulated, it was still white-out conditions in the mountains, and it was pitch black, and almost none of the roads had streetlights. It was terrifying. I just followed the taillights in front of me and hoped I wouldn't go careening off an invisible cliff. But I survived, and one of my New Year's resolutions will be to get my headlights cleaned and my windshield wipers replaced, because damn was that scary.
So there you have it! My three Christmases. :) It was one of the leanest years for presents in monetary terms but also one of the best Christmases; because it was my first married person Christmas, and I had three of them, and there was no big extended family event, and I didn't have to drive anywhere but home on Christmas day, no endless rounds of rushing hither and yon to go seek out relatives; all my hither and yon and my socializing was spread out over an entire week, with plenty of time in between to recharge my introverted batteries before venturing out to a holiday crowd again. Ideal! Hopefully next year I can find a way to skip out on the big family Christmas on my mom's side for a second time, but of that I despair.
I have no plans at all for New Year's except to be lazy and maybe go see the second Thor movie in the dollar theater. I also plan to try and get my presents for friends finished but do not have high expectations of that.
That's all! I realize I'm scarce on here. Life keeps me busy.
Hope everybody had a good holiday season! I need to stop eating dessert, the excess of sugar during the holidays is giving me weird dreams. o_0
Christmas #1
This was the Saturday before Christmas, at my mom's house, with my mom, my siblings, my grandma, and one of my aunts and cousin. This was her "crafty Christmas," where there were no purchased presents for anybody except Nemo and we all had to make something for everybody. Jacob and I photoshopped pictures of everybody in funny situations, like my mom in her "rocker" Halloween costume photoshopped into a picture backstage with Steven Tyler, and then I decorated plain wooden frames with Sharpies. (I tried to think of something better but it turns out my crafting skills are mostly limited to Sharpies). I want to make some for friends, but I ran out of steam after making so many for family and had to postpone it until after the holidays. Also, I hate mailing things, and rarely see the inside of a post office, so I always procrastinate things that need to be sent. It was a REALLY good idea though, I thought, even though my grandma complained about it. I was irritated that I didn't have any warning that my aunt and cousin would be there, I didn't make them anything so they just had to sit there and mostly watch us open things to each other. They got all of us something, so I don't know what planning snafu occurred, but it made me feel bad. My sister made homemade marshmallows and chocolate dipped spoons and hand painted mugs, which I thought was awesome. Todd made shoe racks, but I already have one, so Jacob and I turned it into a bookshelf. Any surface in our home becomes a bookshelf.
Christmas #2
This was on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, at Jacob's family's house, with his mom, dad, and sister. We drove up to Monument after I got off work on Christmas Eve, had sandwiches for dinner, then went to New Life church in Colorado Springs for a Christmas Eve service. New Life is a huge, mall-sized church; a former pastor had some sort of sex and money scandals and it was nearly ruined but somebody else took over and seems to be doing a decent job with it. Still a bit too big for me, but the Christmas Eve candlelight service was fun - more like a concert than a service, they had some band called Brilliance who did interesting version of Christmas carols that I thought were pretty good. Then we went back and had gluten-free red velvet cake (!!!) and talked until we all went to bed. Christmas morning we got up and opened presents, and I got a lot of good stuff; a really cute purse, gift cards to Outback Steakhouse, Starbucks, Kohl's, and Fandango, and a printer from his parents, a Red Jumpsuit Apparatus CD and Zondervan's illustrated Bible commentary from Jacob, and Big Bang Theory season 2 from his sister. Then we went to go let the dogs run around with Jacob's dad (they have three brittney spaniels, Scout, Duke, and Joe) and I was glad it was not snowing. Then we went to go see the second Hobbit movie with Kester and Cailee, his mom didn't want to go - I hated it, and barely sat through the whole thing, I was so seething with rage. I didn't hate the first one but the second one just...overdid it. And that's a serious understatement. But anyway.
Christmas #3
This was the Saturday after Christmas, at my aunt's house in the mountains, with my dad's side of the family (excluding, of course, my dad himself). We all had Mexican food and did a white elephant, the theme of which was toys and games. I got Legos, and Jacob got a little helicopter thing which doesn't ever succeed in getting off the ground and merely flies around whacking into things like an angry fly. But my uncle Wayne got two helicopters and he gave one to Jacob as we were leaving, and that one works, which was very nice of him. People also decorated cookies, but since I couldn't eat the cookies and have no patience for frosting and hate the taste of it anyway I spent my time talking to various family members, playing with the helicopters, and following the Neemlet around playing with him and trying to convince him that "Not the Mama" is a suitable alternative in the short term to Mama (he remained unconvinced). It was fun, but the drive home was an absolute nightmare. It started snowing, and while not a lot actually accumulated, it was still white-out conditions in the mountains, and it was pitch black, and almost none of the roads had streetlights. It was terrifying. I just followed the taillights in front of me and hoped I wouldn't go careening off an invisible cliff. But I survived, and one of my New Year's resolutions will be to get my headlights cleaned and my windshield wipers replaced, because damn was that scary.
So there you have it! My three Christmases. :) It was one of the leanest years for presents in monetary terms but also one of the best Christmases; because it was my first married person Christmas, and I had three of them, and there was no big extended family event, and I didn't have to drive anywhere but home on Christmas day, no endless rounds of rushing hither and yon to go seek out relatives; all my hither and yon and my socializing was spread out over an entire week, with plenty of time in between to recharge my introverted batteries before venturing out to a holiday crowd again. Ideal! Hopefully next year I can find a way to skip out on the big family Christmas on my mom's side for a second time, but of that I despair.
I have no plans at all for New Year's except to be lazy and maybe go see the second Thor movie in the dollar theater. I also plan to try and get my presents for friends finished but do not have high expectations of that.
That's all! I realize I'm scarce on here. Life keeps me busy.
Hope everybody had a good holiday season! I need to stop eating dessert, the excess of sugar during the holidays is giving me weird dreams. o_0