1:56 a.m. - 2004-12-28
Christmas
Christmas is now officially over. We had our last Christmas get-together tonight - Jamie's dad and his wife and his sisters were in town today, so we went out to Jamie's brother and sister-in-law's for dinner and spent the evening there. His family does a gift exchange, and for the first time I was included, so we all exchanged presents. Ours were a big hit - we got a little fluffy bag full of nail polish for his almost 11 year old cousin, and it was incredibly popular. I knit scarves for her and her mother (we also bought a book for her mother), and they were very impressed with the scarves. It's always satisfying when you pick out good gifts, and Jamie was forced to admit that he would let me be in charge of picking all gifts for pre-teen and teen girls in the future. (We even managed to pick out things from her favourite store in the whole world, apparently. And I have to tell you, watching Jamie in Claire's while I picked out nail polish colours was the most enjoyable part of my Christmas shopping. The look on his face when he spotted the large collection of "Mrs. Timberlake" merchandise was absolutely priceless.)
I am back at my apartment now, and glad to be here. Three days at my parents' was enough to make me remember why I wanted to move out, and I left before my back gave out from sleeping on the futon and before I felt compelled to yell at anyone, so I felt that was progress on my part. It was nice to spend time with my family, but I missed my apartment. I missed being able to eat whenever and whatever. I missed cooking, even, which is something I wouldn't have predicted six months ago, but I'm finding I kind of like rustling around in the kitchen. I missed sitting in my chair with Giles, my laptop, and bumming around on the internet without three other people also trying to use the computer. I missed lazing on the couch with Diana, watching Buffy and knitting. I missed Diana too, actually - I kept thinking of things to tell her, or something we needed to do or get, and I guess I've gotten used to seeing her all the time because it felt kind of weird to go to bed without discussing my day with her. We're going to have to figure out a way to have regular contact when we don't live together any more.
Now, all of that makes it sound like I had a crappy Christmas, which I didn't. It looked for a while like it was going to be the worst Christmas ever, but then my cat kindly did not die, and things went uphill from there. (Kitty is now home and doing well, and is getting more patting than she's ever had in her life, and is also frequently getting woken up from naps by nervous people making sure she isn't unconcious, but she appears to be utterly unchanged by the experience.) We got a bit of a late start after the middle of the night escapades, and it was 11:15 by the time someone prodded me out of bed. We opened stockings, and had breakfast, and got dressed - the first sign that it was a lazier Christmas was the fact that my sister just put her hair in a ponytail instead of torturing me with a lengthy getting ready routine - and then we spent an hour or two opening presents. I got much of the stuff that I wanted, including Disney Trivial Pursuit (woo!) and Book Lovers' Trivial Pursuit, which I didn't even know existed. I also got two new pillows, which are excellent and provided a very good night's sleep last night. (Jamie also napped on one yesterday, so I believe they also meet his approval.)
I then went over to Jamie's, where I got a pile more presents, including a truly excellent Edward Gorey poster from Jamie's brother and his girlfriend, which they had dry mounted. It will be going up in our living room, I think. It's hilarious. His parents got me a CD player alarm clock, which totally RULES and has fabulous features like a nap timer - you don't have to set your alarm to have a nap, you just program how long you want to nap for! So that totally kicks ass and I'm looking forward to that. (I actually have a rain check for this particular gift.)
Other things arrived here and there, but nobody managed to outshine Jamie's present, which was...an iPod! Woohoo! I have been lusting after a shiny white iPod for many, many months, and Jamie must have tired of the woeful sighs, because shortly before I received the fateful "I think the cat may be dying" phone call, I opened up a box to find a pretty pretty 20Gig iPod waiting for me. His name is Rupert (to go with Giles, my laptop), and he is very pretty. Already I have good intentions to take him to the gym regularly.
We'll see how that goes.
