Christmas Update
Dec. 25th, 2006 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianThis will be divided into sections, mostly just because I feel like it.
I crawled into bed at around 7am, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dodgyhoodoo, being a light sleeper, woke up around then. So I hauled him out of bed to open presents. Presents yay! From dodgyhoodoo, I got the following:
* Copy of Shardik by Richard Adams (now all I need is a copy of The Plague Dogs and I will be happy)
* The new Kim Newman novel, which looks interesting.
* Kitten Parasites, a little book that's kind of like 1001 Uses For a Dead Cat as written by Jhonen Vasquez.
* The Muppet Show S1 on DVD
* A box set of 3 cheesy 80s chick flicks - Flashdance, Footloose and Pretty in Pink. I'm most impressed with this one because I know he really does not get my occasional jones for cheesy 80s girlie movies but he bought it for me anyway.
I got him a copy of Conspiracy X 2nd Ed (not knowing he had 1st Ed), Storm Front (paranormal detective novel that turned out to be on his wishlist), Keeping It Real (novel which he described as "Shadowrun as it's supposed to be"), a Phillips electric shaver (because he keeps griping about how much he winds up bleeding when he has a proper shave) and Millenium S1 on DVD. He seemed happy.
From the rest of his family, I got:
* Mallrats
* Shallow Grave
* The Shawshank Redemption
* Many, many chocolates
* Napkins with chocolate coins stuck to the package (because his Nan is kind of batty)
He got:
* Both PotC movies
* Chinese 'takeaway' set (beer, noodle bowl and chopsticks, mainly)
* PotC coffee mug
* Cappuccino and biscotti set
And then there are the ambiguous 'we don't know who these are for exactly' gifts:
* £50 from his Nan
* Virgin gift card of indeterminate amount
His Nan signed the gift tag on the bag o' giftage as 'from Nanny'. I will admit, there was a little painful twinge. It's been two years and a bit and I still miss my Nanny, and it's always worse over Christmas. Besides, she'sdodgyhoodoo's 'Nan' - the only 'Nanny' I can acknowledge is mine. Of course, it's odd that all the other tags and cards - the ones to dodgyhoodoo and the ones to both of us - were signed as 'Nan' and only mine was 'from Nanny'. I could make something of it if I was so inclined, but not very much of a something - after all, it is as it is.
Anyway, we had a magnificent time unwrapping gifts while the Muppet Show played in the background, and then I finally went and got some sleep.
Then I cooked the duck again. It came out really well, and I experimented with the mashed potatoes again - this year I did lots of sour cream and butter as last year, but also mashed up some spring onions and the chives with some rock salt and peppercorns in the mortar and pestle I got froml0stmarbles last year and chucked the resultant mishmash into the mix. I really must do that again. The glaze came out well, but of course, with that much maple syrup in it, the sugar burned and the smoke alarm went off three or four times over the course of the preparation. We had to keep opening and shutting the back door to air the living room out. And of course, I could barely finish my one modest portion, much less go back for seconds as is nearly required of massive Christmas feasts, despite not having eaten anything but a couple of gummies and half a huge chocolate raspberry truffle beforehand. I really hate this being ill thing, you know.
After the Muppets and my nap, but before I put dinner in the oven, we put Shallow Grave in the DVD player. I hadn't realised that nerdy speccy insane man with the power drill was Christopher Eccleston, but then, this was before I fell in love with Good Doctor Number Nine. When that finished (and I missed bits owing to futzing about with the duck in the kitchen), I put on White Christmas so we could have it in the background while we ate. However,dodgyhoodoo wanted to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, partially because I told him that pickwick was subtitling that ep and said something about "one word that will make the 'old-skool fanboys' *squee*. He had to watch in case that word was 'Master'. It wasn't. And my gods, it was appalling. Just absolutely appalling. The dialogue, the cinematography, the contrivances of the plot... Everything. I came away from it with a massive migraine and an equally massive desire to find Russell T Davies, back him into a corner, and throw the remains of every Christmas turkey in Britain at him. Then scrape up the whole mess, Davies and all, and make soup out of it. It was that bad. We then watched the teaser trailer bit for the next season and said, in unison, "Fuck that; can't be bothered". Unfortunately, we didn't get to finish watching White Christmas and by the time we'd sat through Who, I couldn't face more televisual entertainment. So only half a Christmas cheese-film this year. Oh well. To be honest, I'm happier to have had the Muppet Show anyway - it's more nostalgic for me than Bing Crosby will ever be. That and Disney specials helped me to tune out the adult arguments in Nanny and Grampa's kitchen over the holiday season. It's odd that I can be fondly nostalgic when some of our family holidays turned out so wrong. Oh well, I take my happinesses where I can find them.
On the whole, it could have ended better but it was a pretty good Christmas Day regardless. Happy holidays to all of you, and hope your day was as filled with at least as much laughter, hugs, love and general *squee* as mine was.
I crawled into bed at around 7am, and
dodgyhoodoo, being a light sleeper, woke up around then. So I hauled him out of bed to open presents. Presents yay! From dodgyhoodoo, I got the following:* Copy of Shardik by Richard Adams (now all I need is a copy of The Plague Dogs and I will be happy)
* The new Kim Newman novel, which looks interesting.
* Kitten Parasites, a little book that's kind of like 1001 Uses For a Dead Cat as written by Jhonen Vasquez.
* The Muppet Show S1 on DVD
* A box set of 3 cheesy 80s chick flicks - Flashdance, Footloose and Pretty in Pink. I'm most impressed with this one because I know he really does not get my occasional jones for cheesy 80s girlie movies but he bought it for me anyway.
I got him a copy of Conspiracy X 2nd Ed (not knowing he had 1st Ed), Storm Front (paranormal detective novel that turned out to be on his wishlist), Keeping It Real (novel which he described as "Shadowrun as it's supposed to be"), a Phillips electric shaver (because he keeps griping about how much he winds up bleeding when he has a proper shave) and Millenium S1 on DVD. He seemed happy.
From the rest of his family, I got:
* Mallrats
* Shallow Grave
* The Shawshank Redemption
* Many, many chocolates
* Napkins with chocolate coins stuck to the package (because his Nan is kind of batty)
He got:
* Both PotC movies
* Chinese 'takeaway' set (beer, noodle bowl and chopsticks, mainly)
* PotC coffee mug
* Cappuccino and biscotti set
And then there are the ambiguous 'we don't know who these are for exactly' gifts:
* £50 from his Nan
* Virgin gift card of indeterminate amount
His Nan signed the gift tag on the bag o' giftage as 'from Nanny'. I will admit, there was a little painful twinge. It's been two years and a bit and I still miss my Nanny, and it's always worse over Christmas. Besides, she's
dodgyhoodoo's 'Nan' - the only 'Nanny' I can acknowledge is mine. Of course, it's odd that all the other tags and cards - the ones to dodgyhoodoo and the ones to both of us - were signed as 'Nan' and only mine was 'from Nanny'. I could make something of it if I was so inclined, but not very much of a something - after all, it is as it is.Anyway, we had a magnificent time unwrapping gifts while the Muppet Show played in the background, and then I finally went and got some sleep.
Then I cooked the duck again. It came out really well, and I experimented with the mashed potatoes again - this year I did lots of sour cream and butter as last year, but also mashed up some spring onions and the chives with some rock salt and peppercorns in the mortar and pestle I got from
l0stmarbles last year and chucked the resultant mishmash into the mix. I really must do that again. The glaze came out well, but of course, with that much maple syrup in it, the sugar burned and the smoke alarm went off three or four times over the course of the preparation. We had to keep opening and shutting the back door to air the living room out. And of course, I could barely finish my one modest portion, much less go back for seconds as is nearly required of massive Christmas feasts, despite not having eaten anything but a couple of gummies and half a huge chocolate raspberry truffle beforehand. I really hate this being ill thing, you know.After the Muppets and my nap, but before I put dinner in the oven, we put Shallow Grave in the DVD player. I hadn't realised that nerdy speccy insane man with the power drill was Christopher Eccleston, but then, this was before I fell in love with Good Doctor Number Nine. When that finished (and I missed bits owing to futzing about with the duck in the kitchen), I put on White Christmas so we could have it in the background while we ate. However,
dodgyhoodoo wanted to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, partially because I told him that pickwick was subtitling that ep and said something about "one word that will make the 'old-skool fanboys' *squee*. He had to watch in case that word was 'Master'. It wasn't. And my gods, it was appalling. Just absolutely appalling. The dialogue, the cinematography, the contrivances of the plot... Everything. I came away from it with a massive migraine and an equally massive desire to find Russell T Davies, back him into a corner, and throw the remains of every Christmas turkey in Britain at him. Then scrape up the whole mess, Davies and all, and make soup out of it. It was that bad. We then watched the teaser trailer bit for the next season and said, in unison, "Fuck that; can't be bothered". Unfortunately, we didn't get to finish watching White Christmas and by the time we'd sat through Who, I couldn't face more televisual entertainment. So only half a Christmas cheese-film this year. Oh well. To be honest, I'm happier to have had the Muppet Show anyway - it's more nostalgic for me than Bing Crosby will ever be. That and Disney specials helped me to tune out the adult arguments in Nanny and Grampa's kitchen over the holiday season. It's odd that I can be fondly nostalgic when some of our family holidays turned out so wrong. Oh well, I take my happinesses where I can find them.On the whole, it could have ended better but it was a pretty good Christmas Day regardless. Happy holidays to all of you, and hope your day was as filled with at least as much laughter, hugs, love and general *squee* as mine was.