Christmas Wrap-up
We just got home from doing the Christmas-with-Family Part 1. I'm all happy and warm after a couple of glasses of wine and some tryptophan in my system now.
It's funny, we were dreading it all weekend: the uncomfortable moments, the language barriers, the potentially short tempers as Dad is wont to get when it comes to getting everything ready on time. It wasn't as bad as we feared it would be.
ktok and I were 15 minutes later than we intended to be. That was due to the water heater. It tripped again, and we discovered it about an hour and a half before we left. So we had to re-set it and let it heat water so he could get a shower. I just washed my face and decided that was good enough.
We started off with the presents. Dad's not allowed to play Santa EVER again. It took him forever to decide which presents to hand out. I swear it took longer for him to pick a present for a person than it did the person to actually unwrap. Yeah yeah, I was a little impatient. But this beats last year when I was handed an envelope with a check in it because all I asked for was cash since Ktok was unemployed for so long, debt had racked up badly, and I was working retail and kept having my sales stolen so I couldn't depend on bonuses. So it was nice to actually have something to open for a change.
We were given some nice gifts...far nicer than I expected. My brother got Ktok a personal DVD player, for example. Mind you, he probably got it really cheap at the base exchange and it's a fairly older system anyway, but still, very nice. He got me a RoboDog. Yay! Something to chase around the ratties!
Dad got me/us (it was labelled to me, but it really is for the both of us) an Ionic Breeze Quadra and it came with a free bathroom Ionic Breeze. That will be good to have around here. Larisa and Lili got me a sewing organizer box that came with 20 large and 20 medium sized spools of thread, plus a bunch of other little notions. It's great...exactly what I need to organize so much of my sewing stuff. We got some other little things, but those were the big items.
ktok gave me my presents earlier today, too. He Gaiman'ed me out! He got me the DVD's for Neverwhere and A Short Film About John Bolton, and a hard copy of Marvel 1602. I've already read the book. Enjoyed it very much! He's so good about finding presents for me that I didn't even think to put on my list!
I still want to finish that sewing tonight, but it's not going to happen. Not with the mess we still have on the floors after wrapping the presents and the general chaos that goes along with it so I can't roll out the dupioni to cut the needed lengths. On the bright side, the sewing kit Mother Bear and Cub gave me means I can avoid making a trip to the store to buy more cream-colored thread for a bit longer.
It's almost 9 pm...I want to take a nap. Damn tryptophan.
It's funny, we were dreading it all weekend: the uncomfortable moments, the language barriers, the potentially short tempers as Dad is wont to get when it comes to getting everything ready on time. It wasn't as bad as we feared it would be.
ktok and I were 15 minutes later than we intended to be. That was due to the water heater. It tripped again, and we discovered it about an hour and a half before we left. So we had to re-set it and let it heat water so he could get a shower. I just washed my face and decided that was good enough.
We started off with the presents. Dad's not allowed to play Santa EVER again. It took him forever to decide which presents to hand out. I swear it took longer for him to pick a present for a person than it did the person to actually unwrap. Yeah yeah, I was a little impatient. But this beats last year when I was handed an envelope with a check in it because all I asked for was cash since Ktok was unemployed for so long, debt had racked up badly, and I was working retail and kept having my sales stolen so I couldn't depend on bonuses. So it was nice to actually have something to open for a change.
We were given some nice gifts...far nicer than I expected. My brother got Ktok a personal DVD player, for example. Mind you, he probably got it really cheap at the base exchange and it's a fairly older system anyway, but still, very nice. He got me a RoboDog. Yay! Something to chase around the ratties!
Dad got me/us (it was labelled to me, but it really is for the both of us) an Ionic Breeze Quadra and it came with a free bathroom Ionic Breeze. That will be good to have around here. Larisa and Lili got me a sewing organizer box that came with 20 large and 20 medium sized spools of thread, plus a bunch of other little notions. It's great...exactly what I need to organize so much of my sewing stuff. We got some other little things, but those were the big items.
ktok gave me my presents earlier today, too. He Gaiman'ed me out! He got me the DVD's for Neverwhere and A Short Film About John Bolton, and a hard copy of Marvel 1602. I've already read the book. Enjoyed it very much! He's so good about finding presents for me that I didn't even think to put on my list!
I still want to finish that sewing tonight, but it's not going to happen. Not with the mess we still have on the floors after wrapping the presents and the general chaos that goes along with it so I can't roll out the dupioni to cut the needed lengths. On the bright side, the sewing kit Mother Bear and Cub gave me means I can avoid making a trip to the store to buy more cream-colored thread for a bit longer.
It's almost 9 pm...I want to take a nap. Damn tryptophan.