A Merry Day

Christmas Day actually turned out pretty fun. Once my brother came with his family, we got down to business - opening gifts - and that started off the day because we got to watch my nieces open presents. That's always fun.

I gave my nieces two gifts - the first one was tickets to see "Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience" which I was all excited about. The second gift was giving them my old iPod - you know - the big white one with the classic Apple font on grey screen. They FREAKED over getting the used iPod! LOL. Nice - next year I'm scrounging around my house for used kithcen appliances to give them.

The funniest part of the gift-giving ceremony was that my brother/sister-in-law (Tom/Aurea) and I never discussed previously what we were each going to get my parents for Christmas... in fact, this was the first year we didn't shared lists. Well - it happened. We both got my parents the EXACT SAME THING, a digital picture frame. Their gifts turned out a bit better because they actually loaded the frame with 300 pictures of my nieces from birth to now. But turns out they want to keep both, and they'll now be able to erect shrines to my nieces in various locations of the house.

My parents were very generous this year. I received a new 16G iPod Nano (gunmetal grey - so sexy), sports-grade headphones, and a complete car detailing certificate. Nice. So after we were all done opening gifts, we retired to the family room and broke out Guitar Hero 3 and American Idol Karaoke. No...not mine - my nieces'. I didn't know they were gonna bring it - or I would've brought another microphone and guitar... they only have one of each. Amateurs.

My Dad has a super fancy home entertainment system - yet - because it's so complicated, we couldn't get the microphone to calibrate with the game so when you sang, there was a delay until your voice came out of the speakers. So annoying. So we switched to GH3. And we all took turns. Everyone. We even made my Mom try. She HATES video games and has very poor hand-eye coordination. We used to make her try and play our first generation Atari game... you remember... that super complicated joystick and red button ;-) well she couldn't handle that when she was young. And now we were throwing her in the fire at 63 to play Guitar Hero! LOL...



Then... I was mulling around the kitchen for something to drink. And there he was. My dreams had come true. I had finally found HIM. The one. He was big and strapping. Thick neck, big barrell chest. Ahh...it was the Christmas gift I hadn't realized I wanted so bad. Gordon. Ah, Gordon. Ok - so not the best vodka...but it was the ONLY vodka in the house. I ran over to Aurea and whispered in her ear, "Will you have a cocktail if I make it?" She grins wide, and nods her head. So I run back and find a few fresh cans of Club Soda, and a can of Kerns Apricot Nectar, and 2 big red plastic party cups...I had all I needed.

Well, as I was pouring, I realized that this marked the FIRST time in my life that I'd made a cocktail in my parents' house for me to drink. True story. My family is NOT a big drinking family. A bottle of booze will last a lifetime in their house. We do drink wine with dinner....and an occasional beer here or there. But NEVER hard liquor. But as I finished my third large-scale, party-tumbler cocktail I had discovered my new Christmas tradition. My sister-n-law and I kept looking at each and mouthing the words "Ooooh, that's good!" or "Mmmmm, smooooth!" LOL. We kept playing GH3 for a while. I jammed on it with a buzz and actually did awesome. And my brother, being a guitar player, was able to kick out some EXPERT level playing. Pretty impressive.

My friend Marilyn showed up, a friend of mine for about 16 years, whose been coming to my family's house for Xmas soon after we met. We did another small gift exchange with her and then we all headed into the dining for an amazing meal. My Mom sure knows how to put out a nice dinner. Giant pork chops, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, stuffed mushrooms, broccoli casserole, and homemade applesauce. The meal was so filling that it completely erased my buzz. I turned to red wine with the meal but I could never recapture my lovely holiday glow.

We all collapsed in the living room to digest. To kill the time, we were playing this Christmas Trivia game - similar in design to Trivial Pursuit, but all about Xmas. I swear, on every card, there was a question about this Christmas movie with Bob Hope called "The Lemon Drop Kid". It became the joke of the game - when another question would come up - we'd just give "the look" and everyone would say together "THE LEMON DROP KID!" lol...

We dragged our fat asses back to the dining room table for desert. Aurea makes an amazing Chocolate Kahlua Cake that makes you wanna drop jiz right there at the table. So good. So I stuffed a piece of that in my mouth with some coffee. Then I just beached myself on the living room floor next to my 13-yr old niece to talk about her and her boyfriend, Ian. Turns out Ian got her a few things for Christmas but she hasn't given him a gift yet. So we brainstormed good gifts that, as she put it, "Personal enough but don't send the wrong the message." LOL!! So funny to hear her talk like that - but I'm really excited that she's comfortable enough with me to share. We had a cute moment.

Anyway - all in all - it was a really great day. I know I was a bit of a poubty-puss in my Xmas Eve blog entry. But I still think I'd rather be with friends on Xmas Eve and family on Xmas. I think it could just be the best of both worlds.