SO.
How was it?
Good day? Bad day? Indifferent day?
Tell me…
1. The best holiday moment you had (if you had one!)
2. The best gift you gave
3. The best gift you got
4. The best thing you ate all day
5. The gift you wish you could have given
6. Anything you would change about the day
7. If the turkey was a little dry
… and anything else you feel like sharing on this, the Official Day of Post-Christmas Contemplation About Stuff and Things.
Curled up on my parents’ couch.
WAY too much Chinese takeout. Whew.
Bedtime or Scrabble? Not sure.
But it’s almost Christmas.
So I’m sending out huge love to you and yours, in the hopes that this holiday season is a peaceful, joyful, wacky, happy time.
A good memory time. A time you can enjoy. A time you can rest. A time you feel good.
A time where you eat so much baking that your skin breaks out in a thin layer of icing sugar.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!
xoxoxox
I’m at my parents’ little cabin in the woods right now, getting ready to head out to my dad’s service. They’re here for another couple weeks while their townhouse is being finished up on the side of the mountain nearby.
It’s cozy, not too tiny, a block from the lake, and lovely as all get out:
And here’s where I’ll be sleeping (note how long it took me to clutter it with products):
And me:
The first Christmas miracle is how the water here has turned my hair into… well… something really soft.
SOFT.
LIKE, REALLY SOFT.
Of course, that’s really nothing compared to peace, joy and love for all mankind… but I take what I can get.
More later, and hope everyone is safe and sound tonight…
It’s a sunny day in Vancouver, which is the BEST POSSIBLE WEATHER for the last day at work before holidays begin. Even if I have a ton to do today, the fact that I arrived at work dry (and even a bit chilly) is BLISS. BLISS, I TELL YOU.
And it didn’t even rain yesterday for Eric’s (yes, I know he hasn’t updated since two visits to Vancouver ago, but he’s brilliant! Click through the archives! GO DO IT!) arrival from the south. We headed out last night for Catherine’s birthday, and had a great time watching the game at our favourite spot downtown.
Oh, and playing with the GPS in Eric’s rental car. WHEE!
All in all, this is shaping up to be a sweet little run of holiday fun, what with Cat’s big birthday bash on Saturday night, a brunch with Catherine’s family on Sunday morning, and time with my family from Christmas Eve onward at a cute cabin in the woods.
Busy, yes. But hey… who needs sleep? Or actual rest?
Oh, wait. Me.
Yeah, I’m a wee bit tired right now. But I think our Christmas Lunch at the office will perk me up just fine (and our Gingerbread House contest, for which my team is building a Gingerbread Construction Site… this IS Vancouver, after all. Land of Endless Building and Giant Cranes. I think it’s only right to commemorate bustling industry with sugar.)
Now that I’ve droned through the details of my appointment book, it’s time to share a little love.
My CHRISTMAS LOVE LIST!
I knew I needed a theme of some sort for this love list — what with the auspicious occasion — so I’ve decided to write…
THINGS I’D LOVE TO GET FOR CHRISTMAS (both probable and improbable… you guess which is which)
12 uninterrupted hours of sleep
The perfect hoodie
A hat that doesn’t make me look like a penis
A perpetually hot cup of coffee
More bacon in my life
Total peace for my parents
A chance to go back and uncrush on some of the sillier boys I liked
A book that doesn’t make me want to peek at the end halfway through the middle
One perfect vocal note outside my range
Patience
Noooo drama
A fuzzy, squooshy blanket in the perfect shade of ice blue
A giant swing (yeah, I don’t know why either… but wouldn’t that be FUN??)
Dancing lessons (tango, I think… or flamenco?)
A look at 5 year-old me and how I was on Christmas morning
A perfect hug every day of the year
A giant bag of sour keys
A cashmere blanket
A single thought in my head for a full 30 seconds
A bunch of my mom’s “Knox Blox” in Cherry Jell-O
My own personal rollercoaster (a real one, not the mental one I have now)
Shoes that make my feet happy, happy, happy
Someone to scratch my back when necessary
A brand-new bed with a pillow-top mattress and pillows that don’t grow lumpy like bad oatmeal within a month
Unabashed confidence in the face of skepticism
Pomegranates that don’t fight me for their seeds
A puppy to play with for an hour a day
Nerf toys (I have a sudden craving to wreak havoc without wreaking havoc)
A MacBook Pro (ahahahahahah)
A perfect party on Saturday
A sweater coat that keeps me warm without KEEPING ME WARM
Health. The good kind
How about you? What’s on your wish list, whether you think you can have it or not?
Do tell.
Almost done my shopping. Aiyyeee! All I have left to buy are a couple stocking stuffers for our houseguest who flies in today for a couple of days.
That’s a great feeling, actually, because I LIKE EVERYTHING I GOT EVERYONE.
I think.
I just hope they do.
Sigh.
I’m one of those people who has two warring sides to their personality:
2. If I AM going to buy a gift, man… I want it to be a good one. Not in terms of cost — that’s a terrible standard to hang your hat on — but in terms of value and enjoyment for the recipient. This makes me a little bananas every year, wanting to get just the right thing.
Hello, irony.
But there it is, and so I always spend the last couple of days before Christmas going eeek! eeek! Did I do the right thing? Is there something they might have liked better? Is that the right colour? Is that the right size?
I know it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t get the best thing, but I really like making people happy.
And what can you stuff in a sock for someone from California (perhaps some hydroelectricity?)
How has your experience with holiday shopping (any holiday will do) been this year?
Tell us about it:
1. Do you love or loathe buying gifts?
2. How many people do you buy for?
3. Have you ever chosen to give to charities or opt out completely instead? Was that a good experience?
4. Are you done all the shopping you’re going to do?
5. Who is the pickiest person on your list?
6. Who is the most fun to shop for?
7. If you’re part of a couple/relationship that shops together, who does the burden fall to in your relationship to get everything done?
8. Do you tend to go nuts, or hold back?
9. Do you give out of expectation or desire?
It’s raining in Vancouver.
HOW NOVEL.
I know that no one needs to read another post about how soggy it is here, but GOSH.
I can’t believe — even after spending years and years and years on the West Coast and breaking at least 30 umbrellas in windstorms (and one in an escalator, but that’s a long story) and owning galoshes and even sporting a yellow rubber coat when it was less than chic to do so in my high school years — just how WET our winters have become.
Every morning sky is gray like a sodden wool sock. Every patch of grass is a mini-swamp, roiling with ecstatic worms. Every street is a minor river system with lakes born of leaf-plugged gutters.
If you have to be outside in it at all, you’re going to get a little damp, even if you have a GoreTex “system” you bought at Coast Mountain or MEC for $700.
Why?
Because it’s also WINDY. No matter where or how you stand, you’re guaranteed a shower of droplets across your face and body. You can’t hide from it under awnings or overhangs, either, because the wind will blow the rain in at you. My open bedroom window even offered a small weather system this morning, with sprinkles of wet across the side of my face not squished into my pillow.
It’s COLD, too. Why is it so cold? According to the temperature, it’s not that cold, but I think the wind and the rain sink into our bones with a special kind of penetrative power (did I just say “penetrative power”? I think I read that phrase in my Spam Folder) that facilitates a day-long chill.
All in all, I’m kind of done with it. You can’t arrive at work dry unless you go from underground parking to underground parking, you can’t walk across a sidewalk without drenching your shoes straight up from the soles (goodbye, sweet Pretend Uggs), and you can’t make plans to do anything outside unless you’ve got towels ready for the drive home.
Ergh.
I’m lucky to work inside, I know. And I’m lucky that my city is so green and fresh and alive. Really, there are lots of people who LIKE the rain, including my wonky upcoming Californian house guest. I don’t even hate it when it’s more of a mist or a shower… or anything other than a fire hose as soon as you walk out the door.
But I wouldn’t mind a bit of nice, fluffy-dry snow and a nose-rosy day that didn’t send rivulets of water down my neck into my underwear.
(I know. Mental picture. You’re welcome.)
I’m not planning to move anytime soon, so I guess I’m going to have to learn to deal with it more effectively. I just have serious resistance to capitulating to weather systems I can’t stand, much like I have serious resistance to buying books with the “O” on the cover.
But this is the city I live in, and they put it on Faulkner. So.
Someone pass me a blow dryer. And a robe. And some waffles, just because.
And really, once we were on the boat, the lighting was nearly nada.
During the course of the night, I managed to do all of the following:
As far as I’m concerned, a complete evening.
