Monday, December 24, 2012

it'll be just like you were never gone

Today was the end of Wampler Family Christmas (tm), and I had a few hours between the end of that festivity and bedtime in which to prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But the day was lovely, even if I did wake up at 8:15; everyone (sans Drewbaby) came out to the house for breakfast, and we ate and hung out for a bit before Aunt B and Uncle B went back to Des Moines. That left mom, dad, [censored], Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, Gram, and I with nothing to do and all sorts of desire to play a game. But since Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy wanted to leave by three, we couldn't play Rail Baron, so we dug through the closet looking for games...

...and as it turns out, most of our games are 20+ years old, and many of them haven't held up particularly well to the test of time. Let's just say that trivia questions are more challenging when they're related to long-gone 'current events', and a game about advertising slogans is really, really hard when most of the slogans are obsolete and half the companies/products have been renamed or disbanded. So, the games were a bit of a bust, but we were moderately entertained and still have lovely memories of Cards Against Humanity to tide us over until next year.

So we ate leftovers, talked politics (v. different than talking politics in San Francisco, I assure you), told Gram approximately twenty-five times that I've never met her cousin Gene and am now writing full-time rather than working anywhere, and generally relaxed. Mark and Kathy left as they had planned, and I took Gram back into her place in town, which was entertaining if only because I point-blank refused to buy her a lottery ticket on the way to dropping her off. Once she was safely indoors, I got a convenience-store cappuccino and drove the long way home with the windows down in an effort to get some (v. cold) fresh air and enjoy a few minutes of much-needed me-time. Yes, I am a hermit.

The rest of the evening was pretty productive; I took stock of all the presents that have arrived and the few things that are missing, then ate supper with the fam. [censored] went to [censored] at that point, but I stayed up, watched an episode of 'Blue Bloods' and an excellent episodes of 'The Good Wife', and wrapped approximately twenty packages. This may be the first time I'm done before Christmas Eve, although I suppose I'm not totally done; I'm missing one package each for my siblings, and my father is conning me into wrapping stuff, which is always a jhoke on my face. But hopefully this means I can actually get some sleep on Christmas Eve, which would be a lovely change from previous years.

So, speaking of sleep, I must go to bed - goodnight!

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