December 29, 2002

Feelin' the Love

Another Christmas down.

AB and her boyfriend stopped by and insisted that we open our gift. They got us this crock pot, after reading in one of my entries that I was going to be needing a new one. Such good friends! We've already made Baked Potato Soup and Meatloaf in it, and we've had it barely a week.

Heather came over for our Christmas lobster dinner on Christmas Eve (even though seafood squicks her out), and we had a great dinner followed by another one of those good friendship evenings. You know the type - hanging around, laughing and carrying on, good conversation. And, she brought Jasper!

The members of Animal Planet weren't quite sure what to think about him. Gypsy fell in love with him, though. She gets along with everybody. Gadget, however, spent a good hour re-peeing on everything that Jasper had marked. Dogs. Gotta love 'em.

At about 4:00, it was time to kill the lobsters.

We put one down on the kitchen floor to see what Oz would do.

At first, he could care less.

Then, he decided a little tail-sniffing was in order.

"Oz Attacks - When Good Kittens Go Bad".

Lobster. Filet Mignon. Grilled Chicken. Potato Soup. Salad. Garlic Rice Pilaf. Wine. Beer.

Moo.

The kids headed to their mom's house right after dinner, so we did the traditional Christmas Eve Present opening. I took a mini-movie of it with my digital camera, but I have no idea how to post a link to it. At any rate, Marie got a digital camera, Michael got a shirt, Calvin got a new Playstation game, and I got this:

On my last birthday back in July, Calvin and I went out to lunch and had shots of the smoothest tequila we'd ever had. He remembered what it was, and got me a bottle for a gift. Heather, Calvin, and I put quite a dent in it that very night.

Then Heather, Calvin and I exchanged the gifts we'd gotten for one another. And here Heather and I discovered that we'd gotten each other the exact same thing:

Heh. I love it when stuff like that happens!

Heather got Calvin a pair of Santa boxers and a Santa hat, and I took a picture of him in them. Originally I was going to say, "He'd kill me if I posted it here, though." But then I asked him, and he said I could!

Heather's generosity continued with:

Another one of those things that I squealed over, so she got it for me.

From my wish list, and I promptly sat down and read aloud from it while we were lounging around in the living room.

A lovely frame, with pictures of Calvin and I from the Christmas party.

It's so cool to have friends that are so generous and know us so well!

We made another batch of magic cookie bars, because the kids ate most of the first batch, and the rest went to the relatives. Heather left at about 10:30, even though we really wanted her to hang out with us. But she wanted to get back to her animals and take Jasper home. Really, she just needs to buy a house next door to us. That would solve all of our problems.

The next day Calvin and I puttered around the house until Marie and Michael got back, at around 1:00. Then we did the whole present opening extravaganza, and I got truly spoiled:

I can quote the entire movie line for line, which I demonstrated and freaked Marie out. Oh, and did I ever mention that Fish sent me a CD of U2's "Joshua Tree", just because she saw it on my Wish List and had an extra copy? God bless my readers, they're a generous bunch.

A sweater from Abercrombie, which looks great with a pair of boot cut jeans I have, a lovely white gold chain, and a new handbag which has a disturbing number of compartments inside it. I'm so loved.

The rest of the gang made off with a lot of loot, too. That's not what it's all about, though, and next year I think we're going to waaay simplify and stick to gift certificates.

Our Christmas activities at home were framed by dinner at Calvin's grandparents on Monday (Calvin's youngest sister said she wanted to feel famous (hah!) and wanted me to mention her on the website - so there you go, M! :), and a nice, quiet little get together at Calvin's sister's on Wednesday. I left them with more stuffed mushrooms than I'm sure they can eat in their lifetime.

That's basically it. Mellow, relatively stress-free, and happy. Like the holidays should be. New Year's Eve will see us staying the hell HOME, running around in our PJ's, playing darts and shooting pool, dancing around to KC and the Sunshine Band, and munching on a bunch of finger foods.

How's that for a minutiae entry? Hope your holidays are as positive as ours have been!

Gratuitous Ozzy photo!

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2002.