Merry Christmas, everyone. I've had a very enjoyable few days. Friday was Christmas Eve, and we celebrated with the traditional package-opening with my sister and her three kids, followed by the even more traditional dinner, church, and package-opening at my paternal grandmother's house. Unfortunately, we didn't have the traditional lasagna; instead, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. But, I scored a cool watch from my very chic aunt (it's Paul Frank, so it has a monkey on the face, and the face is *red*, and there are three interchangeable watchbands in red, black, and white). I also got a designer mirror from my grandmother that is really lovely but unfortunately doesn't match anything that I have, nor does it go with my stuff :( It also says 'come home for love' on it, which is about as blatant as you can get with a plea to come home...I know she's not expressing anything that the rest of my family doesn't feel as well, but she isn't nearly so 'understanding' about my desire to stay in California for awhile as the rest of my family is.
Anyway, Saturday was Christmas Day, and it was nice--my parents, brother and I woke up and exchanged gifets, and sat around for awhile, and then my dad's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came over for Christmas dinner, as well as my grandmother. Aunt Becky had left early Christmas Day to go to her boyfriend's (!) parents' house, so it was a little strange not to have her around. Also, Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner are at two completely different times; Christmas Eve dinner is always around 5:30 or 6 to leave time for church, while Christmas Day dinner is always around 12:30 or 1pm. Dinner in my family is really just the largest meal of the day, hence the different times. We had ham on Christmas Day, which was super tasty, and we played 90s Trivial Pursuit (VH1's 'I Love the 90s' helped me to dominate), then I took a nap in front of the fireplace in the living room while some people watched the Chiefs game.
Yesterday was my immediate family's 'perfect day' together; my mother was expressing sadness that we are destined to have very few remaining days together where it's just the four of us, and she wanted it to be nice. So, we spent it eating brunch: Dad made bacon, eggs, blueberry muffins, toast, and fried potatoes, with orange juice and milk on the side (you get the idea that all we do is eat? no wonder we're all overweight). Then we watched the pilot episode for the TV series 'Stargate: SG1' which my brother got on DVD; turns out that the pilot is two hours, so that took a large chunk of time. Then, while waiting to figure out what game we were going to play, my brother fell asleep, and my dad and I got engrossed in a documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright on PBS. I was surprised to learn so many salacious aspects of his personal life; at one point he had a mistress with whom he was deeply in love, and she died tragically while he was in Chicago and she was at their house in Wisconsin--a disgruntled servant poured gasoline all around the house, bolted all the doors and windows but one, set the house on fire, and then slaughtered the occupants with a hatchet as they ran out the remaining door. The servant split the mistress' skull open, killed her two children from a previous marriage, and wiped out all but two of the workmen who had been in the house. Crazy!
So we watched that, and then my father made homemade pizza (I have a pizza stone that I got for Christmas last year that I need to have sent to me when I move; homemade pizza is so great), and then we played three full games of hearts. My mother was satisfied, despite the TV interlude during the afternoon, and despite the fact that she got trounced at hearts.
Today, my aunt, uncle and three cousin's on my mom's side came up from St. Louis, and we exchanged more gifts and ate lunch. My uncle on that side is paraplegic, so we had trouble getting him in the house; we ended up having to take the back door off its hinges, but he still couldn't progress any farther than the kitchen :( It's a bad deal for family unity that my grandmother on that side passed away; her house was handicap-accessible, but ours definitely isn't. Hopefully my parents build their new house soon; our house is very old, constantly shifting, and likely to collapse someday, and a newer, handicap-accessible house is just a better idea for them as they get older anyway. For instance, it's v. difficult to open and close the back door right now because the house has shifted to hamper it; however, the bathroom door downstairs was also nearly impossible to shut a few years ago and now is back to normal and shuts perfectly. Or, take the example of our icemaker, which worked fantastically when we first installed it, but no longer works because the pipe running water from the main water pipe to the refrigerator is now slanted uphill, rather than down, and so can't get water to the freezer. Isn't that great?
Anyway, the plans for the new house are really cool; a full deck off the living and dining rooms overlooking the pond, a walk-out basement with a home-theater type setup inside, a kitchen built around the antique woodblock that we still have from my great-grandparents' grocery store. But, I will still miss our house; we've lived here my entire life, and it has that cozy feeling that a house gets after being occupied for nearly a century that I can't imagine the new house will have. Not that I'm in love with my room in this house; it's usually full of junk from my brother's attempts at reorganizing his own junk, and it's like a little time capsule from six years ago, replete with my baby-pink bedspread and a calendar that still reads 'September 1999' and has the date when I flew to Stanford underlined in then-anticipation. But, whatever room is ostensibly mine in a new house will never really be mine; it will just be a room that I sleep in when I visit my parents, but it won't hold any memories of my childhood. Oh, well, all things must come to an end, and this house will not survive another thirty years, in my opinion.
I have lots of fun toys to play with when I get back to California, mostly kitchen gadgets--new red silicone kitchenaid spatulas and stirring spoons, a minature red kitchenaid cutting board, a meat carving knife and fork, irish coffee glasses, a bartending/mixed drink guide, a red kitchenaid skillet, a red griddle, a waffle iron, and some other stuff that escapes me at the moment. I also got some dvds and cds, and a beautiful diploma frame from my brother that may encourage me to actually display my degree rather than leaving it to languish in a box.
Oh yeah, and so we did Christmas with my mom's side of the family, then went to a wedding reception for my mom's cousin's son and his new wife. The girl was very sweet, and much too attractive for my smart but somewhat awkward cousin; being the nasty, judgmental person that I am, I figured that she's in it for the green card, but I could be totally wrong and needlessly cynical. Then I came home, took a nap, and went out around 11:30 for drinks with Katie, Elaina, and Katie's boyfriend James. I hadn't seen Elaina in years, since she's been in Spain and we haven't been here at the same time for a long time, I hadn't seen Katie since August, and I'd never met James. All in all, fun was definitely had; we sat at a tavern in town and had $2 bottles of Bud Light and reminisced about the 'old days.' Ha. We're getting together again on Wednesday, just me, Katie, Hannah and Elaina--it will be great to be back together again, since the four of us did everything together in high school, but have grown apart (or at least I've grown apart) since Hannah got married and Elaina's been abroad. Fun times!
This has turned into a novella, which is unfortunate since I should be writing my real novel instead :( Take care, everyone, and sleep well wherever you are.
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