For lack of better blog material, I’m going with the holiday wrap-up. Though I had quite a few christmas parties this year, they were all low-key and casual. Just my style.
It started a couple weeks ago with an extended family get-together where I lost miserably at a beanbags tournament and only hung out for about an hour. The next evening was a dinner party slash christmas party with friends. We did it potluck style and exchanged white elephant gifts. I walked out with a new photo frame and a hideous orange Aztec-y ceramic vase (which I have already managed to re-gift (thanks Amber!)).

The Saturday before Christmas I was at my dad’s, celebrating with more extended family. It was at that party that my little (half-)sister received this scary robotic cat:

I swear it’s possessed. She tried to name it Whiskers, but her older sisters shot that down and forced her to come up with something better. Aren’t we lovely? In the end she settled on Winter, which is only a slight improvement over Whiskers, but sometimes you just have to let kids be kids. I received a t-shirt that says “You have died of dysentery” and shows the image of a covered wagon. Get it?
On Christmas Eve, I went over to my aunt’s house to celebrate with even more extended family. At this party we had a Euchre tournament, games, pizza and snacks. For gifts we each brought a $5 red gift and played a game to exchange them. I ended up with a pair of red Coke boxers. I also won the “Spirit Award” during the card game. Apparently I’m a good sport (meaning I lose and don’t give a shit).

It was for that same party that I made this lovely cherry pie:

There was so much food that the pie was still about 75% intact when I took it home. No matter, I’ve been enjoying the rest of it myself over the last few days.
On Christmas day, we first went over to my brother’s to celebrate with Mom. We drew names and did $15 gifts, so I got a sweet red hat and a movie. Each year my mom gets the girls an antique gift, and this year we all received mirrored perfume trays and two glass perfume bottles. I didn’t get a picture, but they’re very cool. Also, it must be the year of creepy gifts because my niece was playing with this all day:

Her arms, legs and even torso were detachable. I don’t get it.
Later we headed over to Dad’s for the evening. We did Goodwill Gifts - I got two old purses, a laptop cushion and a nail grooming set. What I gave was a giant wooden fork. I haven’t uploaded those photos yet, but just know that it was pretty awesome. Dad also gave us all a $50 gift card to JCPenney, and best of all, he is starting a family account at kiva.org so we can all help alleviate poverty through microloans. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.
Finally, I got an mp3 player. As we were all packing up to leave the last party, my sister Andrea asked if I had an iPod. Nope. Next thing I know she’s throwing a gift bag at me that contains a 2GB SPI mp3 player. She had bought it for someone else who apparently already had one, and for some reason Andrea couldn’t return it. So she gave it to me. Don’t you love her?
Oh I forgot to mention. The morning of Christmas Eve someone gave me some Oregon Chai Tea and made me homemade cherry pancakes. Smiley face emoticon.
Happy Holidays everyone!