And happy Hannukah while we're at it. ;-)
Despite my premature disappointment with Christmas shopping et al as evidenced in my previous entry, Christmas turned out really nice. The main celebration for us, as always, was on Christmas Eve. Usually we just have a family dinner, but this time we had my uncle and aunt visiting, and also some other people, which made for an interesting change of pace.
Even more so due to the fact that nearly all of our guests were Jewish. :-P Making my Christmas present of a Jewish calendar for my grandfather oddly appropriate to the tone of the evening. (And also leading me to scramble around trying to unearth our mehorah so it could stand along the tree. I don't know how it got misplaced, because our mehorah is huge. But I guess that shows you how observant we are. Which is, just to make it clear, not at all. We don't even have any candles to put into the thing.)
Anyway, we had a fun dinner with lots of apple desserts, and a preliminary exchange of presents at midnight, and then most people left, and Anna and I retired upstairs to finish present wrapping, as usual.
And today was just lazy, and full of cinammon eggnog and cognac and rum. And more cognac, and liquor. It's been an oddly liquered Christmas: my father got two different bottles of cognac as a gift, and I gave my mother a French raspberry liquer, and we are much stocked up on fancy-looking crystal-bottled booze now. (I think we have like... 5 containers of various kinds of cognac alone. Somebody better start drinking soon.)
In personal gratification news, my quest to become a Victorian gentleman continues apace. I got a silver pocket watch for Christmas! (To continue the theme of getting writing ink and pens the year before, and a bowler hat.)
And I also got a book on Aestheticism from Anna, and an artbook on angels and demons from the parents, and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD from my grandparents. I am much satisfied. We tried to cut down on presents this year, and my dad says I got the least because I only had 3 things on my wishlist, but the
amount I ended up with strikes me as pretty perfect. (I also got a food processor and the Escaflowne series on DVD.) I ended up with some useful stuff, some stuff I wanted and asked for, some stuff that's pretty cool on its own, and some stuff that was a very welcome surprise (the DVDs). I think it happened to work out because my family happened to know what I wanted very well this year. I'm just really pleased with the DVDs because I didn't put them on my list, but really wanted them, and was going to put aside money to buy 'em, and now I don't have to. Score.
And my mom liked the earrings I got her even though Anna hated them, so all is well with the world.
The only thing that's not so good is that I'm kind of sick. And I wish the rain outside would turn to snow, but, oh well! Now I'm gonna go nap and then write my paper, maybe.
EDIT: Didn't write paper. Woke up all icky-feeling and woozy. Damn.
Even more so due to the fact that nearly all of our guests were Jewish. :-P Making my Christmas present of a Jewish calendar for my grandfather oddly appropriate to the tone of the evening. (And also leading me to scramble around trying to unearth our mehorah so it could stand along the tree. I don't know how it got misplaced, because our mehorah is huge. But I guess that shows you how observant we are. Which is, just to make it clear, not at all. We don't even have any candles to put into the thing.)
Anyway, we had a fun dinner with lots of apple desserts, and a preliminary exchange of presents at midnight, and then most people left, and Anna and I retired upstairs to finish present wrapping, as usual.
And today was just lazy, and full of cinammon eggnog and cognac and rum. And more cognac, and liquor. It's been an oddly liquered Christmas: my father got two different bottles of cognac as a gift, and I gave my mother a French raspberry liquer, and we are much stocked up on fancy-looking crystal-bottled booze now. (I think we have like... 5 containers of various kinds of cognac alone. Somebody better start drinking soon.)
In personal gratification news, my quest to become a Victorian gentleman continues apace. I got a silver pocket watch for Christmas! (To continue the theme of getting writing ink and pens the year before, and a bowler hat.)
And I also got a book on Aestheticism from Anna, and an artbook on angels and demons from the parents, and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD from my grandparents. I am much satisfied. We tried to cut down on presents this year, and my dad says I got the least because I only had 3 things on my wishlist, but the
amount I ended up with strikes me as pretty perfect. (I also got a food processor and the Escaflowne series on DVD.) I ended up with some useful stuff, some stuff I wanted and asked for, some stuff that's pretty cool on its own, and some stuff that was a very welcome surprise (the DVDs). I think it happened to work out because my family happened to know what I wanted very well this year. I'm just really pleased with the DVDs because I didn't put them on my list, but really wanted them, and was going to put aside money to buy 'em, and now I don't have to. Score.
And my mom liked the earrings I got her even though Anna hated them, so all is well with the world.
The only thing that's not so good is that I'm kind of sick. And I wish the rain outside would turn to snow, but, oh well! Now I'm gonna go nap and then write my paper, maybe.
EDIT: Didn't write paper. Woke up all icky-feeling and woozy. Damn.