Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category
Saying Goodbye
It is done!
The Christmas tree is surrounded with wrapped presents. So many, in fact, that they have spilled out and have removed use of a fire exit. So, if our house is on fire, and we’re in the living room, and the front door is blocked by flames… we’ll have to stomp on the Christmas presents to get out. I think everyone would understand.
I got a bit bow-happy when I was wrapping. I really like sparkly presents. Mike makes fun of me. But I like putting a big bow… or three… on the present, and maybe wrapping several strands of ribbon around as well.
My first job was at Hallmark. It was a small family-owned store, really – it just so happened that they carried Hallmark stuff. I stocked shelves and did the register. Sometimes, though, I would get to wrap. I think I’ve always loved wrapping presents, but working at that store made it even better.
We had huge rolls of nearly every kind of paper mounted to the wall. Above them were the spools of ribbon and the tape dispenser. To the right of the counter was a selection of boxes. We wrapped presents as a convenience to the customers – no charge. So, when I was trained, the little old lady who owned the store gave me tips on how to conserve. Make sure to use the smallest possible box. Only overlap the paper by an inch. Any box smaller than a foot across can be wrapped with only two carefully placed pieces of tape. Larger boxes only required three. But for some reason, she let us use abundances of ribbon.
So the presents under my tree are wrapped in a variety of red, green, and blue papers, with ribbons and bows of every color of the rainbow. It’s a beautiful sight to behold. Or at least, I think so.
Last night, in the spirit of Diane is a Procrastinator, I finally finished (after having just previously finally started) the Christmas cards. I double-checked the addresses with our various mothers, and addressed them with my best handwriting (which is still chicken scratch – I can only hope they get where they’re going…). Due to my procrastination skills, however, yet another year has gone by where we didn’t send Christmas cards to friends. This will change for next year! I decree it! I will do my cards early! And maybe even print labels for the addresses… I really feel bad for the post office employees that have to read those…
This morning, with the sun still hovering behind the horizon, I walked out to my frost-bitten car. I lazily drove over to the big blue mailbox, popped Haley (my car) into neutral, and pulled the E-brake. I picked up my pile of 35 cards (not really that many, now that I think of it), and shivered as I walked over to the box. I opened the tray, put the cards in, and hovered there for a while, staring at the stickers I’d placed as seals on each envelope.
I always get nervous when I put large piles of envelopes in the mailbox. I think, “What if I mislabeled them?” and, “Did I forget a stamp?” and, “I’ll just double check them all.” I know that when I let go of the handle, the envelopes will fall into the pile below, never to be seen by me again (unless sent back to the return address due to the fact that the address was illegible…).
Eventually, though, I had to say goodbye, let go of the handle, and listen for the light sounds of the envelopes falling through to the bin below. I shivered back to my car, and got back on the road. The sun rose just as I was waiting at the light to turn left into the industrial park.
The Eventful Weekend Conclusion!
Sunday morning was to be the Christmas Carol service at church. The chancel choir was singing five songs, in addition to the standard three hymns, and other bits of music. There was also going to be a variety of other instruments and choirs doing their things. That is insanity of it’s own kind, until you compare it with my very Catholic parents coming along that morning.
I definitely have a hard time reading my parents’ reaction to my joining a Congregational church. I know it was the right thing for me, and I think they more or less understand. But my mom was insistent in checking it out and seeing what it was. Through a series of events, they were coming up for the Christmas Carol service. I went in early for the last minute choir rehearsal, and my parents met up with Mike at our apartment.
Normally, the choir sings from the back of the church, up in a balcony. But this week, music was the center of everything. So right in front of the first row of pews, two keyboards were set up. In front of those was a row of bell tables, covered with the carefully arranged hand bells. In front of that was a small space where the steps up are. And then there was us – the expanded Christmas choir. We were all very much crammed in; there was just barely enough room. Of course, there wasn’t room for the ministers… or the weekly flower arrangement… but those things were managed.
The service was really awesome. At least I think so. The singing was fabulous, and the children’s choirs (yes, there are two, one for the little-little kids and one for the ones who can read) were adorable. The flautist was a professional, the violinist was only a freshman in high school (she’s going places!), and the bells were simply amazing. If you have never watched hand bells before, you really should find a way. They just… I mean… I can’t even begin to explain. It sounds beautiful, and the manipulation of the various instruments and people is like a dance. Amazing, I say. Amazing.
After church, my parents went on home, and Mike and I hurriedly wrapped the presents for the kid who’s name we pulled off the Christmas tree at church. They were due that day, but I’d forgotten! At least we had bought them already. And, in a fit of things that amuse only me, we had exactly the right amount of cute snowman wrapping paper for the presents.
We brought those back, ran around like chickens-sans-heads, and then followed in the path my parents took down to Connecticut. After all, it was my dad’s 60th birthday!
We were listening to the football game on the radio on the way down (“moving from the right to the left of your radio”). The Patriots didn’t suck! It was awesome. Mike slept through most of it. Oops.
When we got down to my parent’s, my sister was already there. She quickly signed the card, and I put the present with the other one from my mom. “Happy Birthday, Daddy!”
Much of the rest of dad’s side of the family showed up shortly after, and they were joined by some of my parents’ friends. The football game stayed on til the end of the party. It went rather well, I say. Yay!
Once that was over, we were actually willing to be sociable. My cousins’ kids (ages 11-14) occasionally played some Christmas songs on the piano, while we ate, talked, and generally made fun of my dad. My mom made enough food for several armies, and we all ate well. Music and talking continued up ’til dessert. Dessert included the most awesome thing ever conceived by mortal man (or at least by the Shady Glenn chefs) – egg nog ice cream. I don’t know if it was the fact that it was made of egg nog, or just the fact that I haven’t had real ice cream (as opposed to frozen yogurt) in months, but it was superbly awesome.
My dad opened his gifts, which were predominated by beer. His boss (who used to work for my dad…) and good friend gave him two pairs of Christmas boxers. Special. Definitely special. My mom gave him the new Seinfeld box set (complete with puffy shirt), and my sister and I gave him a photo printer. My dad loves taking pictures. Now he can make some real copies!
We helped him print his first picture, and made sure he knew what was going on. It is a pretty awesome little device. He seemed excited.
Then it was time for the drive home. Which was followed quickly by the falling asleep. Which was followed all to soon by the waking up to go to work. Ugh. Mondays.
Let’s Go to the Fair!
Saturday was the day we had been working towards on successive Tuesdays. It was the day of the Christmas Fair at church. And I had no idea what I had gotten myself in to.
Perhaps I should back up. On Friday night, I stopped by the church to drop off my cookies for the bake sale table. I went in through the back door, into the basement, and found myself surrounded by people putting out table cloths, putting up dangling snowflakes, organizing ornaments for sale, putting price tags on wreaths, and one nice lady trying to move a table by herself. I quickly set down my piles of cookies (9 dozen to the church, 4 for me, 20 for Mike – that’s a lot of cookies!), and helped her with the tables. This particular lady, Nancy, had been very nice to Kate and I during our forays into crafting at the church. She was responsible for the silent auction, and discovered that she needed another table. We set up the table cloth for it, and once I had put my cookies in the choir room along with the piles of pies, cakes, cookies, and other sweets, we started arranging the items.
I’m not entirely sure how I got myself so involved in this whole thing. Oh, wait, yes I do. Kate! She is in love with Christmas. When they talked about having workshops for making Christmas crafts, she knew we were going to have to be involved!
Next thing I knew, I had been volunteered to work at the silent auction with Nancy. Kate arrived at the church on Friday night about when I was going to go home to drop off her cookies. I was glad to see her, as it would help me actually walk out the door. We had to get sleep so we could be ready for Saturday’s insanity!
Kate came by at quarter-’til-nine to pick me up. She said she would have made me drive, but it was cold out, and her car was already warm. After a tremendously long three mile trip down Main Street, we were pulling into the parking lot, which already had several cars lined up in it. We made our way inside, and were immediately greeted by insanity.
One of the fair co-chairs had also been very nice to us on our Tuesdays with crafting. Her name is Kathy. There are a lot of Kathy’s at church, so everyone calls her by her full name. Kathy saw us come in and said, “You need aprons.” I had heard about these mysterious aprons, but didn’t know what they were or where to get them. Luckily, as Kathy wandered away to solve thirty-five other crises, another lady who we hadn’t met before showed us the way. She brought us to the chapel (which I didn’t know existed), where piles of aprons with a graphic poinsettia on them were laid out. Kate and I both chose a large apron, due to it having pockets, and went back out into the main hall of the basement.
We immediately started helping Nancy make sure that everything was set and ready to go in silent auction land. She had been up late the night before, preparing, so everything was in fact in perfect order. The bake sale room, however… they desperately needed help. Kate and I both went in to help put things in baggies and stick on price tags. Kate eventually got herself roped in to working at the bake sale, smelling sweets all day long.
At five-of-ten, the minister went up to the microphone and we all prayed together. Then everyone hurried themselves to their spots (I joined Nancy and another lady who’s name I don’t remember).
“Open the doors!”
They had tried to warn us about the people. That when the doors open they just come pouring in. But it really was a sight to behold. The silent auction tables were very near the doors, but blocked off a bit by the jewelry table. Those poor people were massacred! Their artfully arranged necklaces, bracelets, rings, and brooches were in disarray in seconds. But the money started pouring in!
It took people a little while to figure out what exactly our corner was for, but once they did, we had a constant stream of people. One of the first people over was a kid who found a gift certificate for a local fancy restaurant. He was very excited, and wrote down a bid for exactly how much money he had in his pocket. Throughout the day, he periodically checked back to make sure that his bid was still winning. He told us that it was his mother’s favorite restaurant and that he wanted desperately to take her there for Christmas. We spent most of the rest of the day quietly urging people to bid on other things.
The two most popular items were a handmade, reversible fleece blanket with Red Sox logos emblazoned all over it and a gift certificate for the 111 Chop House in Worcester. I decided that I was in the perfect position to snipe anything I wanted, but also decided that it would be unfair for me to snipe more than one thing. So I made it my goal to get the 111 Chop House certificate. I also put one bid on a pretty glass Nutcracker ornament, which was one of a set of five pretty ornaments. Those were also quite popular.
I did successfully snipe that certificate, for a 10% discount of actual value, and I also “win” the ornament. After we announced the “winners,” and the fair started winding down, I brought Mike out to check out the wreaths. He selected one of the ones Kate and I didn’t make, but we forgave him because we didn’t make any that had the particular color ribbon he liked. At this point, I realized that I forgot my check book.
Woops!
But with the magic of cars, I went home to get my checkbook, wrote out a couple checks to the Women’s Fellowship, pouted about how I had accidentally gotten involved in a “Women’s” group (ugh), and went home to crash. Okay, not really crash, we spent the rest of the day preparing for the purchase of our first live Christmas tree. And that was awesome. And here it is!
Merry Christmas, Assholes
That title probably comes across wrong. Seriously, I do wish you a Merry Christmas. And I know it is not in the Christmas spirit to call someone an asshole. But I am finding it difficult to express my jealousy in any other way. Almost all of my favorite bloggers are on their way to Vegas for the World Poker Blogger Tour Winter Classic II. This, coupled with Nickerblog’s hiatus, leaves me with so very little to read!
As such, I’ve decided to get back into webcomics. I used to have a serious addiction to them, keeping up with 19 on a very regular basis with 6 on reserve that didn’t update as often. That’s a lot of comics. But being that I am a very easily distractible person, my obsessions turned to poker during the WSOP and I haven’t really looked back. Time that had previously been spent catching up on the archives of webcomics and pretending to try to learn how to draw was re-devoted to reading the backlogs of poker blogs, and I started playing poker online for real money (real pennies, but whatever). Yes, that’s right people, I’m obsessed with obsessions.
I really don’t know how long it is going to take me to catch up on six months of webcomic publication. I mean… some of these people update every day!
Now, don’t worry your little heads; I am sure I’ll keep up with my addiction to poker. I hope to have enough time to read everything in the morning, and if not, there’s always that down time that comes up while I’m compiling.
Actually, speaking of poker, I had a pretty good run of it this past weekend. I played three separate times for an hour or two each, almost entirely at Omaha 8. The best poker feeling: scooping a 25 big blind pot with the high and low nuts and two people raising and calling all the way to showdown. The worst poker feeling: realizing that you are in fact the sucker at the table. The stupidest poker feeling: being determined to get your money back from the shark who took your stack. An acceptable comeback feeling: placing second in a 5-handed SNG after the shark incident. A redemption feeling: doing the same shark thing so some fish smaller than you after returning to Omaha 8.
Back to the title of the entry, let’s talk Christmas. Last night, the Christmas tree was finally finished. We bought the living thing (yay real tree!) from Lowe’s on Sunday, and started with the lights, garland, star, and decorations that required no hooks. I lost the hooks I had bought in advance, so we had to go get new ones on Monday. We hung up the rest of the decorations then.
The tree skirt we got from Target on Saturday sucked. It had no hole cut out for the trunk of the tree, let alone the tree stand (and we got the biggest tree stand ever to be found). So on Tuesday, I went to JoAnn’s and bought six yards of red fleece, six yards of white ribbon, and twelve yards of magic iron-on stuff. When I got home, I cut everything to size and washed the fleece because it was very static-clingy and covered in various bits of other fabrics from the store. Last night, I finally assembled my beautiful tree skirt, using the magic iron-on stuff. It truly is magical! I’m so glad they had such a thing for idiots like me who cannot sew. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll put up a picture of the tree.
Other awesome Christmas things happened at the church Christmas fair on Saturday. I suppose I’ll wait and write a complete entry about that. But do know that it went very well and was a lot of fun.
It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, which makes me both excited and sad. It’s things like snow that make me really wish I could go back to elementary school. Everything was so much simpler and Mom always had hot cocoa ready when we came in from the cold.
Mmm… Hot cocoa. Now I want some!
But, instead, I will have my left over tortellini for lunch, with some water, and maybe a slice of bread if it doesn’t look too stale.