Christmas Well Done
(long-ass entry)

Christmas was indeed wonderful and enjoyable. I did suffer from some of the rushrushrush, but after all was said and done, i feel like i got to spend as much quality time with my family as i would have been able to, and it was really good quality time too.

Dec 23 I brought my car to work with me so i could just leave straight for Maine from there. I drove for a while. Getting out of Boston is a little bit of a nightmare, but what can you do? I stopped in Kennebunk to pick up Kathy at a friend's house, and her friend and i clicked immediately as we talked about the Phish New Year's show i'll be seeing. Kathy and i left, stopped at Border's for coffee, and made it back to Union around 10:30. Not bad! Met up with Dan, and went back to his parents' house to get some shut-eye.

Christmas EveGet up early: 8am, and got on with the day. I went to the Second Read and Rock City Coffee to visit with the family there, say hi, get a drink, and pick up some last minute Christmas gifts of tea and coffee. Good stuff. I skipped directly to Mum's from there to wrap the last minute fifts, and then Mum and i had an awesome time chilling out, catching up, and dipping peanut butter creams in chocolate. Mmmm. I'm glad i managed to get in that part of Christmas too. After that, it was time to get going to Nana's house for Christmas Eve!
I met up with Dan at his house to more or less pick him up (he brought his own car so he could make it to midnight mass with his family) and we set on our way, over the river and through the woods, to my grandmother's house we went. We got there around 4, followed closely by Mum and Rick, and the place was all lit up with Christmas lights, and Nana, my Aunt Kimmie, my cousin Asa, and my Uncle Danda were all there! Five minutes later, my brother showed up with his girlfriend! YAY! We DID Christmas Eve. We ate dinner, sat around and caught up with each other, laughed at my uncle who is hillarious, especially when in the company of someone as hillarious as Dan. We were all rolling with laughter. Then came the presents. Oh boy, was it ever an event. I was glad that my presents of the gift certificate/order form for things that i can knit went over well. They all thought it was a great idea, and i think they're all looking forward to figuring out what they want - mittens, a hat, scarf, or socks?
I got great stuff as well. Mum and Rick got me this fantastic Monet umbrella, replenished my supply of Jet coffee from the Second Read, and my favorite -- a balsam pillow that Mum embroidered and made for me entirely. It's beautiful, and reminds me of her when i look at it and smell it. I won't bother to say everything that i got because that would take too long, but suffice it to say that i loved everything that everyone got me, especially since so much thought went into it. For example, Kimmie gave Dan and i basketfull of cooking ingredients along with a recipe for one of her favorite energy bars that she thinks we would love. All the ingredients are more difficult to come by, so she picked it all up. That really required a lot of thought! And i'm excited about it, and i will think of her whenever i use the recipe or even just when i look at it in its frame.
Eventually it was time for everyone to leave, so Dan and i parted our ways as well, and i went off to Dad's house. Mark and Dad had already hauled out the liquor, and Dad sent on an adventure to get me drunk. So we all drank and opened presents together. Once again, these really required some thought, and he got me a beautiful set of cast iron shelves! They'll go great with the cast iron Chinese teapot that my uncle gave me. (Dan and i are now known by his Mom as the cast iron people since we also have a cast iron bed. It's not bad at all to be known as people who get damned sturdy stuff! Sure! That can be our theme in addition to our beautiful, sturdy oak coffee table and solid oak kitchen table...) Dad also got me a couple of books -- one of them despite the fact that he HATED it in high school -- and some fabulous CD's, one of them i have yet to listen to.

Christmas I wake up at 7am hung over because whatever the hell was in that fishhouse punch he gave me didn't work so well. I was going to go over to his girlfriend's to open presents with her and their adopted daughter Yulia, but... well, Jeanne understood why. Apparently, her dad got her drunk on fishhouse punch one year too, and we both decided it's a bad idea to trust your Dad with alcohol and you. They'll keep ya drinkin'. So i went back to bed and woke up four hours later feeling almost good as new, and i was hungry. Food. Cheerios. He got me Cheerios! I love Cheerios. Then, Dad and i set off for Grammy's in Gardiner. She's doing great, though she is really starting to show her age. Her short-term memory is really not what it used to be, but she's just as spritely as ever. A wonderful soul to be around.

Eventually, it was time for me to leave and head off to Dan's house for his family's Christmas dinner, where we stuffed ourselves silly with cheesebread, cheezy broccoli soup, and other festive treatsf. Mmm. Presents: I like the theme of everyone feeding us this year. Luke and Kristi gave us a jar with cookie ingredients in it along with a recipe for the other things it would need (basically eggs and an oven), and Nate and Tara gave us some great cookbooks, as did Debbie and Maurice.

Finally, the present i was most nervous about giving, Dan's gift. I got him a black messenger bag. Now, he's very picky about them, so i was quite nervous about whether it would meet his ramifications for a great messenger bag. But it did! And he was totally surprised! Yay! And what he got me was romantic. His gift to his family this year were series of paintings that tell a story. He has been sharing this with me all along, but i missed out on a great deal while i was sleeping. It turns out that there was another frame that i wasn't aware of, which is the end, and it's the couple kissing happily! And the princess looks like ME! It's incredibly sweet. And it's a beautiful painting. I love his art. His sense of composition is rare and unusual, and it's especially great that he gave me a piece of his art because i'm always trying to convince him that people really do love his work. He is able to acheive so much with just the simplest line. It's wonderful, and always talked about how he gave other people art for gifts but not me. Well, i was lucky this year and got some too :)

OK, so this should wrap up a big entry. I have so much more to write about Christmas, which just goes to show you how much i simply love Christmas. I didn't even begin to talk about the days after Christmas that i spent with my friends from Maine, how i saw people i haven't seen for years that still mean so much to me, and how much love i felt in general with just being around everyone again with the sense of celebration. Or the fact that this year being economically difficult forced people to be more creative about Christmas gifts than they usually are, and i sincerely appreciate the amount of thought that went into them all.

This holiday season has meant so much to me because i am blessed just to have warm, loving people in my life who fill me with joy when i am around them. The only thing that could have been better would have been to not have a sinus infection. Grr. Still getting over that one.

Hopefully being in FLORIDA will help me to get better. FLORIDA! I'm visiting one of my best friend's from the college days right now. It's great. Florida is kind of like Vegas, except with more trees and humidity and without the casinos. More later.