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Merry Christmas.
I hope that everyone who celebrated Christmas had a lovely holiday. All in all, things were good here.
We had a bit of unpleasant excitement on Christmas Eve when my brother Steve called to say that his plane from San Francisco was delayed because of "weather in Pittsburgh." And called back in the middle of dinner to say that actually, the plane was delayed for security reasons. Three men had just been expelled from the plane, and it was being thoroughly searched for explosives. Steve's partner wanted to just get back off the plane altogether, so he wasn't sure they were going to make it home even if the plane did take off. But they stayed on the plane - even after a guy had a noisy, frightening panic attack in the aisle right next to them, "confessing" to something that turned out to be trivial and non-security-related. And although they had to wake up in a Pittsburgh hotel early on Christmas morning, we all went to the airport at 9am to meet them, and we helped them get their presents wrapped in a hurry, and we all had a pleasant Christmas morning together. I'm so grateful that they arrived safely, and so glad they decided to brave the trip in spite of everything.
The high point of Christmas this year, for me, was seeing people pleased with the presents we chose for them. Misha's father and stepmother loved their George Jones tickets, and were having even more fun trying to figure out how on earth we'd smuggled the gift-wrapped tickets into their house and under their tree. My five-year-old niece carried her doctor's kit around all day yesterday, to the exclusion of most of her other gifts. My whole generation of the family had a lot of fun playing Fluxx, which I'd bought for Misha. (Thanks for introducing us to that,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ororo.) And the Bop-It game I'd first seen in the alt.polycon 7 consuite and subsequently bought for my seven-year-old nephew was so popular that I apparently should have distributed a couple more as well.
We also surprised my parents with Christmas stockings. It's always been something my parents have done for us, well past the age of Santa and into adulthood. This year, my oldest sister organized a conspiracy to make stockings for them - and they were utterly surprised and thrilled. We've pretty much decided that the whole stocking enterprise will be taken over by the sibling set - next year we'll do for each other as well as for my parents. (My mother was tired of it and out of ideas anyway.)
Most of our big-ticket presents came well before Christmas. Last summer, Misha's dad bought us a dining room table and chairs. My parents had arranged to give us a TV, which we bought just before Christmas. And I arranged to give Misha a CD-RW, which he'd already bought and installed. So we didn't have the hugest pile of presents under the tree.
It was a good Christmas morning anyway. Misha gave me the Sims module "Hot Date," and I can't wait to go home and install it. He also gave me a couple of travel guides - one outlining day trips from Baltimore, one called "Maryland and Delaware, off the beaten path." Now that things have settled down for us, we're both looking forward to traveling more. We got ornaments for our tree (including a couple of very old glass ornaments that belonged to my grandparents), and tickets to see a pianist at the Kennedy Center, and books, and cool glass coasters from my sister Juanita, and luxurious bath stuff, and I got a gorgeous silky blouse in a dark moss green from my sister Debbie and two hand-painted scarves from Misha's birth mother.
And I was with my family. It was good.
We had a bit of unpleasant excitement on Christmas Eve when my brother Steve called to say that his plane from San Francisco was delayed because of "weather in Pittsburgh." And called back in the middle of dinner to say that actually, the plane was delayed for security reasons. Three men had just been expelled from the plane, and it was being thoroughly searched for explosives. Steve's partner wanted to just get back off the plane altogether, so he wasn't sure they were going to make it home even if the plane did take off. But they stayed on the plane - even after a guy had a noisy, frightening panic attack in the aisle right next to them, "confessing" to something that turned out to be trivial and non-security-related. And although they had to wake up in a Pittsburgh hotel early on Christmas morning, we all went to the airport at 9am to meet them, and we helped them get their presents wrapped in a hurry, and we all had a pleasant Christmas morning together. I'm so grateful that they arrived safely, and so glad they decided to brave the trip in spite of everything.
The high point of Christmas this year, for me, was seeing people pleased with the presents we chose for them. Misha's father and stepmother loved their George Jones tickets, and were having even more fun trying to figure out how on earth we'd smuggled the gift-wrapped tickets into their house and under their tree. My five-year-old niece carried her doctor's kit around all day yesterday, to the exclusion of most of her other gifts. My whole generation of the family had a lot of fun playing Fluxx, which I'd bought for Misha. (Thanks for introducing us to that,
ororo.) And the Bop-It game I'd first seen in the alt.polycon 7 consuite and subsequently bought for my seven-year-old nephew was so popular that I apparently should have distributed a couple more as well.We also surprised my parents with Christmas stockings. It's always been something my parents have done for us, well past the age of Santa and into adulthood. This year, my oldest sister organized a conspiracy to make stockings for them - and they were utterly surprised and thrilled. We've pretty much decided that the whole stocking enterprise will be taken over by the sibling set - next year we'll do for each other as well as for my parents. (My mother was tired of it and out of ideas anyway.)
Most of our big-ticket presents came well before Christmas. Last summer, Misha's dad bought us a dining room table and chairs. My parents had arranged to give us a TV, which we bought just before Christmas. And I arranged to give Misha a CD-RW, which he'd already bought and installed. So we didn't have the hugest pile of presents under the tree.
It was a good Christmas morning anyway. Misha gave me the Sims module "Hot Date," and I can't wait to go home and install it. He also gave me a couple of travel guides - one outlining day trips from Baltimore, one called "Maryland and Delaware, off the beaten path." Now that things have settled down for us, we're both looking forward to traveling more. We got ornaments for our tree (including a couple of very old glass ornaments that belonged to my grandparents), and tickets to see a pianist at the Kennedy Center, and books, and cool glass coasters from my sister Juanita, and luxurious bath stuff, and I got a gorgeous silky blouse in a dark moss green from my sister Debbie and two hand-painted scarves from Misha's birth mother.
And I was with my family. It was good.
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Stocking tradition?
(Meanwhile, glad to hear that Steve and his partner got there (and back?) safely.)
Re: Stocking tradition?
Do I need more detail than that? We have a set of bright red fuzzy stockings with white fuzzy trim, much larger than would fit on most people's feet, which Santa Claus traditionally fills with small presents. When we were children, we hung our stockings by the fireplace with much ceremony. As we reached adolescence, stockings just started appearing, filled, on Christmas morning.
When I was a child, the family rule/tradition was that stockings were the only thing we opened before breakfast. I think that had to do with my mother's belief that children who had too much excitement on an empty stomach would become whiny and break down into tantrums. She was probably right, but it was still always hell to wait for the grownups to finish their breakfast on Christmas morning. At least we could play with our stocking presents while we were waiting.
Re: Stocking tradition?
Oh, and I got an amazing hi-tech crock pot. For which I have absolutely no recipes. This is going to be interesting. What to christen this gadget with?
Re: Stocking tradition?
Somewhere, I have a crock pot cookbook. Would you like me to start hunting for recipes?
Re: Stocking tradition?
Do you really have to ask? Yes! (Alas, they don't allow as a tag. )
And I should have remembered about the foster kids and stockings. I have a sudden image of Dexter and DeeDee running around with a label maker.
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Heehee. I asked for that for the same reason (I'd enjoyed playing with it in the apc 7 consuite)! I'd never seen it before that alt.polycon, and I didn't even know you could get them in this country - but strangely, most of my friends had seen it before. How odd!
I really like mine - it's a Bop-It Extreme, with five things to do (bop it, pull it, twist it, flick it and spin it), and it's surprisingly much harder than the original Bop-It which only has three options. But it's great :)