Post-Christmas post

So, as long as the other awake and online people are doing it, here goes, a list of what I did/got for Christmas.

Christmas eve, because my dad managed not to have a single Christmas decoration up, let alone a tree, and because my brother hadn’t even got the money he was supposed to Christmas shop with until that afternoon, after my father and sister went to bed (they do this early because they both have to wake up to deliver papers in the wee hours of the morning), my brother Heath and I went to the only open local store (other than convenience), a Fry’s Marketplace, to shop. We found that our budgets wouldn’t cover much, and that we had exactly one hour before they shut down the registers and went home, so we moved at a fairly quick pace through the non-food sections of the store, discussing what he wanted to get for the few people he was shopping for (all family). Found some good stuff: Floating candles for Angela, a LotR puzzle in a neat metal box for dad, a little stuffed cat that very closely resembles a cat April once had for April, and I paid for the bulk of it, but a very nice shower curtain for me (and him to share in our new bathroom in Pine) that’s all nice and rainbow-y. Except then we had fifteen minutes to get out of the store and no money left for wrapping paper or deocrations. So, err, we left. We actually got out with about four minutes to spare (there sure are long lines on Christmas Eve right before the last open store for miles around closes), and went straight home.

We wrapped up the presents in a week-old New York Times. I have been shopping for a while and had some presents for the same people to wrap and wrapped them in the most boring sections of the NYT. I saw that we had a sort-of respectable pile of gifts growing and Heath and I quietly (so as not to wake dad and Angela) discussed where we could put them, having no tree, no stockings, no chimney, no blinky lights. As I wrapped up some socks and underwear I had bought myself (labelling them “To Teel, From Santa”, so that there would be something from Santa for Christmas) in the movie ads from the NYT, Heath popped into the next room and drew a Christmas tree on a big sheet of paper. He taped it to a lamp in the living room and we stacked the presents under it. We just finished up and got into bed, mere minutes before the rest of the household began to rouse.

When we woke in the morning (around 9? I don’t recall) we exchanged gifts with Angela (who was not to be joining us at April’s party). She liked the floating candles and the Edge Calendar/CD I got her (she should, she drove me to Best Buy specifically to get it for her) and she gave Heath and I cards reminding us that she had given us our gifts months ago (Maverick on DVD, plus the Vegas vacation for me, and an MP3/CD player for Heath). Dad got Angela a medium-sized George Foreman grill so she won’t starve after the rest of us move out next week. Dad and Angela liked the Christmas “tree”, which was neat.

Anyway, we got outselves together (fairly ineffectively and slowly, and with one mid-drive turn-around to pick up forgotten things) and went over to April’s, arriving a little after 11AM. The power was out for at least a city block there (no traffic lights, no house lights, etc…), but everyone seemed to be having a good time anyway. We showed up right after breakfast, and we stayed until around 3, or right before lunch. The only people I knew there were April and her family, plus my family, whom I had arrived with. The rest were April’s husband’s family and … I don’t know who else. There was a vast unwrapping (there were at least 5 children there unwrapping, only one or two of which I recognized), and I opened my socks and underwear and also a neat Futurama metal sign from April that I shall do my best to find a place to hang in my room. Heath got a couple of “blank books” to write in from her, plus a really, really neat pen. It has three tips, a pen, a mechanical pencil, and a stylus (for a palm device or such), which in itself isn’t particularly neat. But the pen knows which way is up. No twisting to get it to change tips; there are little marks on the back of the pen, and you simply turn the entire pen and press the button on the end and whichever image is up determines which tip comes out. I may not be expressing how weird it is for a pen to know up from down. I also gave April a card with a gift certificate for a free Painting from my ‘gallery’ in Pine, of her choice, and she seemed to really like it.

Anyway, not knowing anyone at a party makes it kinda boring for me, so after a couple hours, Heath and I began playing the new Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition that April had got from Angela for Christmas. Other partiers wandered in and out over the next couple of hours, sometimes playing for a few rounds, but always giving up because they didn’t know a couple of questions. At around 3, dad finally seemed to get permission from April to leave, so we declared me a winner (I had five pie pieces and the next best was two pieces), packed up, said our goodbyes and left. The highlight of the party was the baccala, for me.

After that, Heath and I went to see Peter Pan, which was great, and the closest retelling to the truth of Peter Pan and Neverland that I’ve seen. Then we tried to go see Big Fish with Angela, but they were sold out, so we’re going this morning. So then Heath and I went to see Paycheck, which we liked overall. The biggest problem we had with Paycheck was every single advertisement for it, ever. See, it’s a slowly-unfolding suspense movie where you’re not supposed to know what he’s building or that he’s changed his personal items or that he has a relationship with Uma or a dozen other things that the commercials give away. Had we not seen a single ad for it, or if the ads had been more discrete, the experience would have been vastly better. But we still liked it. Action, Sci-Fi, Phillip K. Dick, it’s all good.

Anyway. All told, here’s what I got:

Journey to Wild Divine
Futurama Metal sign
White socks, white briefs, white boxer briefs, thermal underwear (I bought myself)
Maverick on DVD
A shower curtain (I bought most of)

Yep.

And there’s a traditional gift from Zoe of Harkins stuff, so that’ll probably happen. I have a little something for him, too. He should like it.

Anyway, now we’re off to see Big Fish.

Happy Boxing Day!