Well Merry Belated Christmas! I had 5 fabulous days off work, and subsequently stayed as far away from a computer as I can get. Ok that’s not altogether true, but I did try to do more people to people things. Like go to the gym, and shop for Christmas presents on Christmas Eve (which I wouldn’t have had to do, had people just told me what the hell they wanted!). I also baked cookies to give away as gifts, bought super cute pre-decorated boxes to put gifts in (since a third grader can wrap presents better than I can) and watched a DVD of Jeff Dunham, one of the funniest ventriloquists I’ve ever seen. Of course, now I can’t stop shouting “Silence! I kill you!” to anyone who gets within 10 feet of me. (Get the DVD. Trust me.)
Christmas went well. We always go to my parent’s house in the morning and open stockings and gifts, and then we drove out to Jason’s aunt’s house to do our gift exchange and have dinner there. Both places were fun in their own way. My family does stockings in a slightly unusual fashion. We get the requisite candy and such, but we also get weird gag gifts. Bungee cords, cigars, anchovies, tire gages, miniature bananas, dog toys, and twist ties have all made an appearance in our stockings over the years. After we’ve pulled out our treasures, we barter and trade for other things. My dad always gets the cigars and anchovies in exchange for some form of candy. My sister trades away anything that isn’t plain chocolate in exchange for pretty much anything else. It’s always a lot of fun to do. We didn’t get to stay long, though, since we had to go out and see Jason’s family too. I was all sorts of domestic, helping his aunt get dinner made and on the table at a reasonable time. I really like his family, so it’s no hardship getting stuck in the kitchen with his mom, grandma and aunt while the menfolk stand around outside. The food is always good. I was proud of myself for not eating the plethora of cookies, and fudge, and other non-diet friendly treats available to me. I even kept my dinner portions pretty small, so I wouldn’t over eat. His mom and aunt both sent us home with a HUGE basket and platter of Christmas cookies, fudge and candy. It’s sitting in the fridge tempting me right now. I’m hoping Jason ate it all while I was at work, though I’m not holding my breath.
Work is very slow right now, which is great. I’ve got a lot of the end of the year work done already. Once that’s complete, I can clean my desk and work more on the company website. Both are things that I’m really not looking forward to, but that my boss has been a bit naggy about. But I deserve it. My desk is in a perpetual state of “Oh-my-hell-a-file-cabinet-exploded!” which works fine for me, but irritates everyone else. The website is coming along much more slowly than I’d thought it would, since I keep getting stuck on how to do new things. I just need to put my nose to the grindstone and push through it. Maybe tomorrow…
