cherydactyl

On Saturday, I went to visit my friend A. A and I have been friends since middle school. In high school, she turned me into a movie watcher with numerous movie nights which inevitably included Little Caesars "garbage can" (everything) pizza. We lived together my freshman year at UM, which was her sophomore year, and lived in apartments together the next two years after that. But we haven't seen that much of each other in the last few years, partly because I have kids and she doesn't, partly because her work life has largely been drama-filled in the last several-to-many years (which appears to be well and truly over, yahoo!), and partly because it's a pretty far haul between our residences (especially if you don't use the freeway, like I didn't on Saturday).

Anyway, the reason I went was to pick up a very important item for our family Christmas... they gave us an extra Wii they had, which came from a misunderstanding about who was buying a group gift among some other friends. Shhhh. Rock Band 2 is in the closet, along with an extra controller and some other accessories. Double Shhhh.

In any case, as is common when we get together, I had to make myself leave, several hours later, because we can talk for hours and hours. I told her and her husband of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of which they had not heard. They showed me some Top Gear video (of their amphibious cars episode). We talked and talked and talked. About Tibetian Buddhism and roleplaying and movies and our lives and many other things. And there was tea.

Which leads to the revelation of the day: Agave nectar is a low glycemic sweetener. Score!

I'm sitting here with a silly yellow tissue paper crown on my head, having cleaned up from our Christmas Eve dinner of glazed ham, baked potatoes, strawberries, peas, beans, peppers and cucumbers with dip, and fizzy juice (apple and blood orange). My Christmas cracker had a tiny maraca in it. S shook all of them when deciding which to place on which plate while setting the table, so I have absolutely no sympathy that she is disappointed with the crayons she received. She did get a green crown. :) M got a little green horn-shaped noisemaker and a pink crown, illyaa got a magnifying glass and another yellow crown. My joke paper said...

Don't worry about avoiding temptation!
As you grow old, it starts avoiding you!

I forgot about popcorn, so we are popcornless tonight. I could make it, but quarter after eight is too late to *start* popcorn when we need the girls in bed so we can stock the tree before we hit the sack.

Half of the stuff I need to take to my mom's is packed; the perishables can be packed quickly tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to hanging out with my sisters and their families/friends at my mom's. I didn't manage to make the decadent pie I was planning, but we do have cookies for Santa.

M is now watching the Grinch (original animated), S is wrapping her presents, and I probably either throw an egg strata together or pre-mix the dry ingredients for pancakes to make tomorrow morning progress smoothly.

Happy Christmas! Or, Happy what-you-celebrate, if not Christmas.

Tomorrow when we get back, I have to remember to check for the Dr. Who special. :)

I've decided that the makings of our family Christmas Eve are:

&hearts Ham for dinner
&hearts Christmas crackers so we can wear silly paper crowns and tell bad jokes
&hearts A movie and/or games with popcorn

Traditions only happen because somebody decides it's a tradition. So there.

I thought of a few more things for my gift list, in case you need another laugh, or are still actually shopping.
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