December 30, 2010
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…hooray for christmas!…
alright gang, here’s the christmas debriefing
slept at the martin household christmas eve night in order to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for christmas round 1. santa visited sometime in the night bringing all sorts of goodies for our stockings. the very first things i opened came from lex—matching ugly christmas sweater t-shirts from woot, LOL!! among a plethora of excellent surprises, i received a new battery charger and batteries for my camera—just what i needed! it’s been getting pretty unfortunate lately, digging through my old camera bag in search of some combination of ancient AAs, hoping that i might come up with a winning pair that would hold some sort of charge. no more worries on that front—i’m all set! also got a particularly awesome reusable water bottle (with my name on it! i’m such a sucker for that kind of thing!) it even has a top that will accommodate a carabiner clip, so i can hook it right to my pack when we hike. hooray! over at nit’s (christmas round 2), my brother and my future sister-in-law racked up a set of schmancy silverware from my grandmother—plus pretty much the rest of their table spread from me. napkins, placemats, napkin rings, etc. they seemed excited to get some stuff from their registry—i think that worked out well! i got my irish import perfume—nit always stocks me up on it at christmas. this year, i got an additional bottle, as the company just launched a new fragrance. i’d been hoping to get a chance to sniff it out—i love it!! gave my mom a certificate for her salon and a couple new headbands for the gym. gave nit a receipt showing that i’d paid extra into her electric bill, since our christmas tradition looks like this:
3750 lights. ornament count won’t be final until we take ‘em all off!
i also gave lex the requested “craziest thing you can find in a thrift store in florida” gift: hanukkah sand art. he laughed appropriately
over at mom and daddy’s place (christmas round 3!), the christmas haul was in great danger of causing the front of their house to erupt, as usual.
a brief, and therefore, not anywhere near complete list of items received there: books, jewelry, hiking/camping gear (including spandy new sleeping bag and funky hat, woo!), makeup stash for the year (plus a whole heap of new nail polish in ridiculously awesome colors), purse stash for the year, a bunch of snacks from earthfare, gift cards and a bit of cash. i know it sounds like i’m glossing over all the good parts, but if i listed every single item i got, we’d be here for days!!
awesome things that others received:
lex got a grow-your-own portobellos kit and a gigantic wok from my folks. he just served lunch out of the wok for the first time today—that was an intelligent investment! also, mom gave him a vertebra mug. it’s pretty cool stuff.
my folks gave my brother some heirloom paintings of our family crests. i think he liked them a lot. i’m really glad they gave them to him, because i think that’s such a nice gesture for a guy getting ready to start his own branch of the family tree!
my dad gave my mom a pretty, sparkly ring
and james, erica, and i gave daddy a brand new bike—complete with a matching bell!
after all the gift-giving was done, james and erica headed out to do christmas round 4 with her family, while lex and i stayed to have lunch with my folks. mmm, tofurkey, lol. mom had a surprise for all of us—she’d used the handmade ornaments that nit’s been making for the past few christmases to decorate the shelves in their dining room:
here are some other shots of how their house was done up for the big day:
in the evening, lex and i headed back to see his family for christmas round 4. vegan bbq, brownies, and cookies for dinner, yum!! it was so good to see everyone—i hadn’t seen that side of his family for a while! libby’s boyfriend, chris, even made it down and i know that made her so happy
lex and i got to show off our ugly christmas sweater shirts—they were a big hit, lol.
excellent gifties all around, including a heap of new (and much, much needed!! jeans for me), a really super black vest and shirt combo, some wicked cool scarves (including an infinity scarf, which i’d had in the back of my mind to purchase for myself soon), a booklight (finally! one that works!!), and a vegan cookbook, which thrilled me to death. i’ve already bookmarked the first five recipes that will be made from it, lol. and one of the best parts of the evening? as we were opening presents, it started to snow! that’s right, all of my silly predictions of a white christmas actually came true!
and after all that, i still have christmas round 5 left! lex and i save our christmas for a quieter, calmer time when we can really sit down, appreciate exchanging gifts, and enjoy just being together. poor kitties—cat santa waits until these cat parents celebrate christmas
ahh. that’s the rundown. even for making each round as short as i could, it’s still a long post. and the shortening i did doesn’t really let any of the excitement of the day shine. i suppose, in summary, all i can do is assure you all that it was the most wonderful, happy, thrilling, surprising, exciting christmas i’ve had so far. and after 26 years of wonderful, happy, thrilling, surprising, exciting christmases, you know that’s saying something.
so, to my immediate family, my family of friends, and my friends of family, thank you, far more than these few words could ever express, for making it the best one yet.
