Happy Holidays and so-on :)
Brief Christmas summary writeup!
Nick arrived circa 5pm on Monday and let himself into my apartment with the key I'd left for him. We got takeout Thai for dinner and then did a bit of socializing and some reading together in the same room before knocking off to bed.
On Tuesday we got up around 9am (me a bit before, Nick a bit after) and did a catch-as-catch-can breakfast. After that we drove to Target to buy some Christmas-scented wax melts and packaging for Nick's gift to our mom. (Success on both fronts!) Then we hit the grocery store. After a lunch of leftovers, we walked into town (with a detour to Gimme! Coffee so Nick could get a latte) where I returned two slightly overdue library books. We still had some time to kill, so we drove to Buttermilk Falls (which Nick had never seen) and looked around for ten minutes or so until our parents called and said they'd reached Ithaca and were checking in to their motel.
Mom and Dad got to my apartment around 3:30pm, and we did a bit of preliminary unpacking and moving stuff into my refrigerator before we drove up to Collegetown, took advantage of my rental office staff parking space, and walked to Sage Chapel for the early Christmas Eve service. I was part of the service -- I did a reading and introduced two hymns -- which was cool. I have lived in Ithaca since 2000, but this is the first time I've made it to my own congregation's Christmas Eve service -- I have always been elsewhere at Christmas time, whether that's New Jersey (lots), Washington DC (once), Seville (once), or Iowa (often, while my grandmother was still alive). So it was cool to finally get that opportunity. :)
We then had takeout Chinese for dinner and Mom's homemade cookies for dessert, and did some general conversation/socializing until ~10pm.
On Wednesday we had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast (along with assorted fruit, and also mimosas because why not), after which we did the present-opening thing. Mom, Nick, and I then set out on a walk. We went the first part together, and then split up because we each wanted a different length walk: Mom the shortest, since she'd already done a morning walk before breakfast, and Nick the longest. Dad stayed home and took a nap. Then we all four piled into Mom and Dad's minivan and drove to Taughannock Falls, which Nick had also never seen.
When we returned home, it was Mom and Nick's turn to nap, so Dad and I did some table-setting and then read together in the same room until Mom got up. We then had some snacks and drinks and kibbitzed around my coffee table with a party "game" of questions about Ancient Egypt. I knew the most answers of us, which is partly because I just think Egypt is neat and did some reports/research projects related to it in my youth, but partly also as a result of various Great Courses I've been listening to over the past year and a bit. None have been directly all about ancient Egypt, but it gets mentioned tangentially for a lot of reasons, and while I have a mind like a sieve for dates and events immediately affecting my day-to-day life, my brain is a steel trap for completely useless trivia. *wry* Anyway, we collectively agreed that it was an interesting trivia exercise that we have no need to repeat and will give away to a garage sale or something similar.
Dinner was salmon in a dill cream sauce, fancy rice, broccoli with pine nuts, and green salad. After dinner, we played Uno, which we have decided is a more sociable game than Hearts. It does require remembering to bring a special deck, and the timing is more variable, but the greatly increased element of random chance and the lack of any scoring metric beyond "X person won this hand" does reduce interpersonal stress. (I mean, we deliberately lessen the cutthroat nature of Hearts by playing a set number of hands -- generally eight -- rather than playing until somebody hits a set number of points, but even if we don't track it on paper, the general knowledge of who's "winning" the cumulative points tally is still there. We are all kind of competitive jerks about card games -- even Mom, who likes to pretend she's not. *wry*)
Today we did breakfast at Friendly's, after which we packed up my parents' minivan and Nick's car, and they all drove down to New Jersey. Nick will leave for Minnesota on Saturday or Sunday, and I will drive down on Tuesday -- in both cases, so as to attend a New Year's Eve thingy -- so Nick and I said goodbye this morning, while I only said "see you soon" to Mom and Dad. Also Mom volunteered to wash Nick's linens and the two tablecloths we dirtied, which was very kind of her.
Then I spent the afternoon pulling my apartment back to normal-ish, taking a walk, and taking a nap.
And tomorrow it's back to work. *sigh*
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Nick arrived circa 5pm on Monday and let himself into my apartment with the key I'd left for him. We got takeout Thai for dinner and then did a bit of socializing and some reading together in the same room before knocking off to bed.
On Tuesday we got up around 9am (me a bit before, Nick a bit after) and did a catch-as-catch-can breakfast. After that we drove to Target to buy some Christmas-scented wax melts and packaging for Nick's gift to our mom. (Success on both fronts!) Then we hit the grocery store. After a lunch of leftovers, we walked into town (with a detour to Gimme! Coffee so Nick could get a latte) where I returned two slightly overdue library books. We still had some time to kill, so we drove to Buttermilk Falls (which Nick had never seen) and looked around for ten minutes or so until our parents called and said they'd reached Ithaca and were checking in to their motel.
Mom and Dad got to my apartment around 3:30pm, and we did a bit of preliminary unpacking and moving stuff into my refrigerator before we drove up to Collegetown, took advantage of my rental office staff parking space, and walked to Sage Chapel for the early Christmas Eve service. I was part of the service -- I did a reading and introduced two hymns -- which was cool. I have lived in Ithaca since 2000, but this is the first time I've made it to my own congregation's Christmas Eve service -- I have always been elsewhere at Christmas time, whether that's New Jersey (lots), Washington DC (once), Seville (once), or Iowa (often, while my grandmother was still alive). So it was cool to finally get that opportunity. :)
We then had takeout Chinese for dinner and Mom's homemade cookies for dessert, and did some general conversation/socializing until ~10pm.
On Wednesday we had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast (along with assorted fruit, and also mimosas because why not), after which we did the present-opening thing. Mom, Nick, and I then set out on a walk. We went the first part together, and then split up because we each wanted a different length walk: Mom the shortest, since she'd already done a morning walk before breakfast, and Nick the longest. Dad stayed home and took a nap. Then we all four piled into Mom and Dad's minivan and drove to Taughannock Falls, which Nick had also never seen.
When we returned home, it was Mom and Nick's turn to nap, so Dad and I did some table-setting and then read together in the same room until Mom got up. We then had some snacks and drinks and kibbitzed around my coffee table with a party "game" of questions about Ancient Egypt. I knew the most answers of us, which is partly because I just think Egypt is neat and did some reports/research projects related to it in my youth, but partly also as a result of various Great Courses I've been listening to over the past year and a bit. None have been directly all about ancient Egypt, but it gets mentioned tangentially for a lot of reasons, and while I have a mind like a sieve for dates and events immediately affecting my day-to-day life, my brain is a steel trap for completely useless trivia. *wry* Anyway, we collectively agreed that it was an interesting trivia exercise that we have no need to repeat and will give away to a garage sale or something similar.
Dinner was salmon in a dill cream sauce, fancy rice, broccoli with pine nuts, and green salad. After dinner, we played Uno, which we have decided is a more sociable game than Hearts. It does require remembering to bring a special deck, and the timing is more variable, but the greatly increased element of random chance and the lack of any scoring metric beyond "X person won this hand" does reduce interpersonal stress. (I mean, we deliberately lessen the cutthroat nature of Hearts by playing a set number of hands -- generally eight -- rather than playing until somebody hits a set number of points, but even if we don't track it on paper, the general knowledge of who's "winning" the cumulative points tally is still there. We are all kind of competitive jerks about card games -- even Mom, who likes to pretend she's not. *wry*)
Today we did breakfast at Friendly's, after which we packed up my parents' minivan and Nick's car, and they all drove down to New Jersey. Nick will leave for Minnesota on Saturday or Sunday, and I will drive down on Tuesday -- in both cases, so as to attend a New Year's Eve thingy -- so Nick and I said goodbye this morning, while I only said "see you soon" to Mom and Dad. Also Mom volunteered to wash Nick's linens and the two tablecloths we dirtied, which was very kind of her.
Then I spent the afternoon pulling my apartment back to normal-ish, taking a walk, and taking a nap.
And tomorrow it's back to work. *sigh*
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