'Twas the night before Christmas...
Dec. 24th, 2003 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterSo it's Christmas Eve, and I'm down at the old homestead place for the holiday. It was not without some trepidation that I came, given that one of my most vivid memories of life down here before college was how utterly cold it got in my room of a winter night. Plus, I had to shift about half the contents of my room off the bed, due to attempts to rummage through the boxes and find things that left my room something of a disaster area.
The last couple of days prior to today were spent largely in a paroxysm of computer game playing, as my attention was claimed by first Serious Sam and then Populous: The Beginning. Along the way, I also managed to get some chores done, including the last of my Christmas shopping. (I was stunned at how long the lines were at Walmart at midnight on the 23rd. I mean, midnight, you don't expect the lines to be six people long.)
Today I went down to my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Becky's for their Christmas brunch at about 11 a.m. Various relatives were there: Mom, Dad, my grandmother (affectionately referred to as "Granny"), my two brothers and their wives, my two nieces, Aeris and Guinevere, and my brother Alex's Chinese friend Soong, aka "Panda," who seems to have been adopted into the family as a de facto cousin. We exchanged gifts (I got a sweater) and visited a while, then I headed back to my apartment to wrap presents. I was deterred in this only slightly by the fact that, just as I needed tape to seal the first of the presents, I found I didn't actually have any. I headed down to the Signal convenience store near my place and got some, wrapped the presents...and promptly broke the tape dispenser by stepping on it after I was finished. That always seems to happen. Oh well, at least I got the presents wrapped first.
Headed down to the homestead place about five, stopping only to get a six-pack of Boulevard Brewing Co. Nutcracker winter beer. I arrived here about a few minutes before Alex, wife Rachael, and Panda, and set up my old Apple Powerbook and some cheap speakers as a Christmas carol jukebox; I'd downloaded about 800 megabytes of Christmas carols in the last couple of weeks expressly for that purpose. We had dinner—barbecue beef sandwiches, fried potato hash, and peas—and then Alex, Rachael, and Panda wrapped their presents and I cleaned off my bed. I expect that in a little while they'll clear the table off and call me in for board games and other family togetherness stuff. The traditional gift-opening time in this household is Christmas day morning, though I suspect it may have to wait for afternoon as brother Aaron & family may not be able to make it down here before 11.
It's funny...it used to be that Christmas morning went on forever, with all the gifts and things under the tree. Now it seems like it's over in just a short time, and somehow less satisfying than it used to be. But I guess that's par for the course when you're an adult instead of a kid.
The last couple of days prior to today were spent largely in a paroxysm of computer game playing, as my attention was claimed by first Serious Sam and then Populous: The Beginning. Along the way, I also managed to get some chores done, including the last of my Christmas shopping. (I was stunned at how long the lines were at Walmart at midnight on the 23rd. I mean, midnight, you don't expect the lines to be six people long.)
Today I went down to my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Becky's for their Christmas brunch at about 11 a.m. Various relatives were there: Mom, Dad, my grandmother (affectionately referred to as "Granny"), my two brothers and their wives, my two nieces, Aeris and Guinevere, and my brother Alex's Chinese friend Soong, aka "Panda," who seems to have been adopted into the family as a de facto cousin. We exchanged gifts (I got a sweater) and visited a while, then I headed back to my apartment to wrap presents. I was deterred in this only slightly by the fact that, just as I needed tape to seal the first of the presents, I found I didn't actually have any. I headed down to the Signal convenience store near my place and got some, wrapped the presents...and promptly broke the tape dispenser by stepping on it after I was finished. That always seems to happen. Oh well, at least I got the presents wrapped first.
Headed down to the homestead place about five, stopping only to get a six-pack of Boulevard Brewing Co. Nutcracker winter beer. I arrived here about a few minutes before Alex, wife Rachael, and Panda, and set up my old Apple Powerbook and some cheap speakers as a Christmas carol jukebox; I'd downloaded about 800 megabytes of Christmas carols in the last couple of weeks expressly for that purpose. We had dinner—barbecue beef sandwiches, fried potato hash, and peas—and then Alex, Rachael, and Panda wrapped their presents and I cleaned off my bed. I expect that in a little while they'll clear the table off and call me in for board games and other family togetherness stuff. The traditional gift-opening time in this household is Christmas day morning, though I suspect it may have to wait for afternoon as brother Aaron & family may not be able to make it down here before 11.
It's funny...it used to be that Christmas morning went on forever, with all the gifts and things under the tree. Now it seems like it's over in just a short time, and somehow less satisfying than it used to be. But I guess that's par for the course when you're an adult instead of a kid.
