Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

The 24th my parents and Davis and Jody and Chris came over earlyish (Davis is a friend of Eve's from middle school, and then I became really good friends with her mom and stepdad, and we had such a fun second Thanksgiving with them that I invited them for Christmas Eve), then my sister and her family showed up about seven-thirty and we had a big noisy houseful, which has not been a thing the past few years, and I was kind of missing it. It was maybe a tad too loud and boisterous for my parents, but in past years we've had pretty much the same exact evening Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I wanted to change it up a little. 

Christmas morning we did presents at 9:30 a.m. here so we could go over and do presents at my mom and dad's place when my mom got home from church. 

We had brunch there, then came back here for a couple of hours before everyone came over for dinner. We did the turkey, stuffing and Brussels sprouts, my parents brought the mashed potatoes and baked curried cauliflower. We put on the Muppets Christmas Carol at my niece's request - we always watched either that or Mickey's Christmas Carol. My sister's family all stayed at my parents' place Christmas Eve but my niece stayed here the rest of the nights - Angus had a bedroom upstairs but moved downstairs years ago so there's a good spare room, and that way no one has to sleep on the air mattress at my mom and dad's. Eve and I and Charlotte watched Elf after everyone else left. I hadn't seen it for years. Charlotte was entertained. Eve was unimpressed - she thought Jovie should have gotten a restraining order on Buddy rather than dating him. 

Eve being unhappy with the calibre of joke from her Christmas cracker

Boxing Day my sister's family and Matt and Angus went to the World Juniors Hockey Game and then we all had dinner at my parents' place. Usually they come a little earlier and leave on Boxing Day, and I was happy they were still here, but do you feel like your body starts shutting down on Boxing Day? I feel a little like my body starts shutting down on Boxing Day. 

I gave a lot of books.

My niece is charismatic and exuberant and hilarious, and we have a similar sense of humour. Every year I tell myself that one year I will only buy her gifts that don't comment on her sexuality.

Unfortunately, this was not that year.

I got Angus mostly nice athletic wear and golf clothing, and stuff for his walls and apartment. I got him a grim steeper because he says he's a tea guy now. I got him a baking soda penguin. I got him some fun things for his desk at work. And a cool wallet, because he's had the same one since he was in high school. For Canadian content, I got him an indigenous artist's print and the maple syrup candle Elisabeth recommended. 

For Eve I got makeup and various fun things - when we were at the craft show when she was home in October for break, I got her a gorgeous cashmere upcycled vest and put it away for Christmas. Amusingly enough, I think her favourite thing was actually the Animal Crossing Lego I found in early November and bought on a whim. 

I also got everyone t-shirts, because I've always kind of wanted to get family-wide matching pajamas like my friend Holly (HI HOLLY) does, and that was never going to happen, and this seemed like a good alternative. 

We realized that it had been SIX YEARS since we were all together for Christmas. Jody and Andrew and the kids came after New Year's last year. The year before that there was an epic storm that kept them from driving here, the year before that was Omicron, the year before THAT was Covid Prime and before that it was work schedules. 

Cousins on the stairs pic from this year:

2016:

Christmas Wrap-Up

First of all, I love you all so very much (am resisting beginning with 'Hey Sluts", because sometimes I am bad with sincere emotion and I am trying to get better at that). I think I was genuinely not fishing for compliments, and in this case sometimes any compliments received could feel like people lying to make me feel better, but every nice thing anyone said was so specific and so exactly things that I hope I AM good at, it made me feel perfectly content to not be a university provost or an effortless scarf-wearer (I can improve in some areas, but scarves look stupid on me, I don't think there's any changing that). 

Comparing ourselves to other people is absolutely counterproductive. What we know of other people is usually a fraction of the truth. For every person we admire, there is likely another person who admires us. But we shouldn't give up trying. But we shouldn't try too hard. (This is me paraphrasing all of you wise, wise women). Like Swistle says - Blogging: We help each other!) And a writing compliment from Maya - Maya! Beautifullest writer. And eating more pancakes is SUCH a fantastic goal. I did trick myself into becoming a flosser many years ago. Basically I forced myself to do it for a couple of weeks and counted on my compulsive personality to make it unbearable NOT to do it going forward. And it worked, it's kind of terrible. 

Angus left today. He's driving to a city in New York for a bachelor party weekend for a friend getting married in the spring, then driving to Burlington (Ontario) to my brother-in-law's place to get driven to the airport to fly back to Charlotte on Sunday. We were a bit stuck on how to get him everywhere, given that transit wasn't really working and we weren't sure he could rent a car. Matt finally hit on the plan - Angus drives our Rav (bonus - it has snow tires on), leaves it at Matt's brother's place, Matt rents a car to drive Eve back to Hamilton (twenty minutes from his brother's place) and picks up the Rav there. 

He had a longer break than I thought he might, which was really nice - didn't feel a whole lot different than when he was home from school. He got home the 22nd, we had our family tree-decorating and photo shoot on the 23rd (insert million photos)

Part Two: Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Thrust!

Part Three: Kill Frosty

Part Four: Generic Madcap Happy Family so Heartwarming (SO bad with sincere emotion, I actually love these, I am unashamed).