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Merry Christmas!

Jill

I’m back in beautiful Seattle for the first time in a year, and it feels good. Last night my mom, sister and I went downtown to look at the lights and window-shop, then came home with all intentions of going to Church but ended up cooking (crab cakes and coconut-curry mussels) and then watching Act I of “When the Levees Broke” (see it if you haven’t). Today we’re doing the usual slow Christmas breakfast followed by presents, and my auntie is coming over for a dinner that my little sister will be cooking. I asked for some furniture for my apartment for Christmas, so I suspect that I have mostly socks and maybe a new toothbrush under the tree, and I’ll have to wait for my return to New York for UPS-Santa to deliver the goods. But it’s nice being at home with my sister (who is the funniest and most entertaining person I know) and my mom — who has been bending over backwards to make our time home absolutely perfect, from baking fresh bread for us when we walk in the door to stocking the fridge with all of our favorite foods to even getting the dog a new Christmas scarf with a jingle bell so that he’ll look cute.

Of course, it is Christmas with the family, so within an hour there should be lots of red wine flowing, and pretty soon I’m sure we’ll all start hearing about my aunt’s crazy times in the Air Force, her stint as a professional hippie in San Francisco (stories which inevitably end with, “…and boy was that a lost weekend”), and her animals (somewhere around 10 cats — a number that is in a constant state of flux and that she can’t even keep track of — a crow, and a raccoon that just had babies).

It’s so good it almost makes up for my mom’s incredibly slow dial-up.

Now, time for goat cheese omelets and coffee. What are you doing for the holidays? Or, if you aren’t celebrating, how are you spending your day?

18 thoughts on Merry Christmas!

  1. I’m getting ready to go somewhere that I didn’t really want to go to because I thought my brother was going there too, but it turns out that he’s not. Great.

  2. Well, the best part of the day is already over. We got up bright and early (though not as early as Dad claimed we would…our step-mom took pity on us) and opened presents, and then Dad made up some waffles, which went well with this new hot chocolate that my sisters and i got for Christmas. Since then, it’s been packing. Why, you ask? Because at around about 4:00 my sisters and i are flying out to Washington, DC for our cousin’s wedding, which is this Saturday. That in itself should be pretty fun, but one of my sisters is deathly afraid of flying, so the other two of us are in for a really fun few hours…w00t.

  3. This is my first Christmas with my wife (first that we’re married; first that I actually had the day off), so we started a pretty nebulous tradition: sleep in, make pancakes. Win.

    My Christmas stash is mostly DVDs. I got my wife the Bourne trilogy and her very first iPod.

    We’ve got a kegger planned for the bowl games on New Year’s Day. That’s aboot it on the Nation front.

  4. We had pancakes at the JCC, and then Sam took our daughter for a swim. She’s now upstairs cleaning up from an impromptu playdate, Sam’s sawing something in the garage (he’s making a trebuchet for work, believe it or not) and I’m doing some computer stuff that I haven’t had time to do for ages. I downloaded TiVo to go so I can put TV shows on my iPod – my treat to myself. Oh, and I’m on call, but it’s been eerily quiet. We’ll have friends for dinner – I’m making ginger-orange tofu – and an early night.

    We had a mini-vacation in the Big City last weekend, which was a lot of fun, and I’m off the 31st and 1st (on call until then, in the office and hospice all week).

    My best Chanukah present was a gift certificate for two one-hour massages, and I plan to use them soon!

  5. How nice to spend the day with your family; sounds really great!

    Doing all of our traditional things: buffet dinner Xmas Eve, eggs Benedict with mimosas this morning, roast beef tonight- been in jammies all day. Kids asleep by 11pm, then eldest up at 2:45 and younger by 6am- somehow Santa got stockings stuffed! Early bed for all; Gramma comes down for 3 days tomorrow. 🙂

  6. I’m at my in-laws (this is the first year I’ve had in-laws and it’s weird). I am trying not to confuse “people do things differently” with “I don’t like this!” and it’s been a little taxing. Fortunately, tomorrow we’re driving 9 hours to see my family, which will be lovely. There’s going to be filet mignon with gorgonzola cream sauce soon!

  7. Went to aunt’s place with my family for the Christmas Eve gathering which included hanging out with her sons, chatting with my auntie and uncle, and helping her older son set up the new imac he got for her…including activating the capability to type in Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. We then walked his mother/my aunt through getting online, playing CDs/DVDs, and learning the wonders of the integrated isight camera.

    Today, relaxed by taking a series of long walks with family around the Rockaway Beach area. Though I am happy with giving and receiving gifts, the best part of this holiday season is seeing and hanging out with family and friends.

  8. My little sister is funny and entertaining too. I wonder if it’s a little sister thing.

    We celebrated by having a nice dinner last night with my mom, my sister, her son and my husband. This morning we gave the kiddo his gifts (no gifts for the adults) and then we went for a walk in Brooklyn. It was a nice day.

    It’s only my sister’s 2nd visit to NYC so I tried to make it fun for her. We went ice skating yesterday and saw a show the day before. It’s been a nice holiday.

  9. Well my artistic youngest daughter got the Bamboo drawing tablet she’s been lusting after for months, so she’s very happy. I finally got binoculars for bird-watching, which I’ve been asking for for years. And the household got World of Warcraft, which means you all might not be seeing much of me.

    I cooked a pork roast, meatloaf, wild rice, gravy, fresh bread, peas, blueberry muffins and lemon bars. Now I’m very sleepy and thinking that it’s going to be a good night’s sleep.

  10. Though none of us wanted to talk about it, this may well have been the last Christmas that we have at my brother’s house, since my dad is starting dialysis soon and may not be able to travel out from Arizona anymore, at least for a while. So it was a bit of a bittersweet Christmas, if mostly unspoken.

    On the plus side, my husband once again justified my decision to sit on him until he agreed to marry me by buying me the iPod Shuffle I’ve been talking about incessantly for at least three or four months now. And he loved the Jayne hat I made him — as soon as we got home, we sat down and watched that episode of “Firefly.”

  11. We went and saw Sweeny Todd at the movies. Then we came home and made carrots and parsnips glazed with Calvados, shrimp cocktail, and skillet fried halibut with a lemon-dill capered beurre blanc. All served with a nice white wine by Six Prong. For dessert: bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with cinnamon pear chocolate sauce served in front of Looney Tunes.

  13. I had planned to spend the day hosting a lovely Christmas dinner and watching my kids open their presents. Instead, 3 out of the 4 of us ended up with a stomach bug that kept us throwing up most of the day. Merry Christmas to us! So instead we will be having a small dinner tonight and having the family up in the next week or two. I did get a very nice Christmas present though- a massage gift certificate, new stain pajamas, a very soft sweater and two fabulous pairs of slippers.

  15. Christmas Eve, my wife and I had her family over for “Asian Greens” (lots and lots of lettuce wraps you get to fill yourself with ginger, peanuts, spinach, rice, plum sauce, and 96 other things). Yesterday, Christmas itself, we woke up exhausted and decided to do a double-header at the movies: “Atonement” and “The Savages.” Came home and helped the chinchillas open their stockings (nuts and raisins, of course). Sat in front of the tree. Ate cupcakes and drank soy egg nog and snuggled.

  17. Christmas Eve day was spent with my husband’s father’s extended family for brunch, then the afternoon at my father’s extended family for the afternoon. I went to the 11 pm service at my Unitarian church and saw friends who date back to 3rd grade, which is always one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Christmas day was brunch at my parents’ place in Maple Valley, at least until the husband saw that it was snowing and got very paranoid that we couldn’t make it back to Issaquah ok (yeah, he’s a bit of a worrywart). My parents got us an espresso maker, and I’ve been messing around with it since then trying to perfect a latte. His parents live in Issaquah as well, so we stopped by and I blew his 11-year-old sister’s mind with tickets to PNB’s ‘Nutcracker’. Today was back to normal– husband is doing 12 hours at Microsoft, I spent my gift certificate at Elliott Bay Bookstore and enjoyed my last few days of winter break. I love that the older I get, the more I am able to appreciate and relate to my family.

  18. Mmnemosyne, I got myself an iPod shuffle several months ago. I love it so much, but I live in fear of losing it–it’s so tiny.

    I’m a little nervous, but I figure I haven’t lost any of my other small electronics (at least, not permanently) and the clip seems pretty strong.

    My only problem right now is that I have to keep it in a closed cabinet because apparently it’s exactly the right size for a kitty toy, or so our tuxedo boy seems to think.

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