What Now

Welcome to the Special Holiday Edition of my Weekend Update!

Hmmmm, feels as if I should have a musical number to kick this off. Nah, I'll save it for another time. : )

If I had never known how blessed I was before, I would certainly have found out this past week/weekend. It was a perfectly amazing parfait of everything lovely and fun. God has blessed me with so many wonderful things and people in my life, and I'm very sure I don't deserve any of them. Maybe that's why I'm so grateful for it all. : )

Thursday night was the time Steve and I had set aside to do our own little Christmas. He had already let it slip what he was getting me, the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks that I collect (not to mention he couldn't resist giving me three of them at varying intervals before Christmas too), but I was still excited. I had been finding him a few little things here and there, and so we exchanged our gifts and had fun looking them over. After all of that, he asked me to come sit next to him for a while. He gave me a hug and said "So, did you get everything you wanted?" (A line we are all familiar with due to the ubiquitous "A Christmas Story") so I took the que and said "Well, almost". He leaned forward and pointed and said "well, what is that in there?" Of course, I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just laughed. He said "No, really, I think I saw something in our room." So we walked back to the bedroom, and there was a HUGE box on the bed. Needless to say, I hadn't had any idea about another gift, so I was surprised. I was so taken aback, that I didn't open it right away. In fact, I was a little scared of it...pretty sure there was something alive in it (don't ask me why). So Steve finally told me to open it, and I did. He had gotten me an iMac G5, with all the bells and whistles! I was completely floored! Not only had he not let it slip that he had gotten this for me, he had managed not to give it to me before hand! It was awesome! So of course, we set it up right away. : ) Now I can make all of my movies and DVDs at home, I can video conference (someone out there, PLEASE get a camera so I can do this), and everything else that iMacs do! It was totally unexpected! Of course, one of the first things I did was cause it to crash - and now it's at the Mac Resourse place getting fixed (doh!) but still, what an amazingly thoughtful gift! Thank you Steve! : )

Friday was set to be a kind of Blah day, but it turned into anything but. In fact, it was Anti-Blah, if there is such a thing! There was really nothing for me to do at work so I had brought a few things to keep me busy, and my-very-favorite-Kenny was meeting me at the SpRocket for lunch. I puttered around the office until he got there, and we had such a good time! Since I don't get to see him that often, I always forget how much fun it is to spend the day with him. When we were younger, and I lived in Athens, he would come to visit his grandparents for Christmas and we would always pick a day, or a couple of hours at least, to go out and act silly. I'm glad to know things haven't changed that much. : ) Everyone should have a day of acting silly, in my opinion. We exchanged gifts, both of us had gotten each other books. He got me three very awesome cookbooks (I think I'm going to have to learn to cook!), one from a place in Savannah called "Lady & Sons" resturaunt. I think I gained six pounds just reading the recipes! I don't think I have ever seen the call for more butter in my life! He also, wonderful man that he is, remembered my weakness and gave me a little box of Godiva.

*moment of silence*

Okay, whew! After that we just sat and talked for hours about everything, and to end the day, of course I had to show him the sunset view from the roof. I mean, how often do you get to see the sun set behind the only standing model of the Saturn V? I also had to reach back into the dusty cobwebs of my memory to try and tell him what all of the other things in the park were, but to be fair, it's been about 8 years since I gave THAT tour. : )

Saturday was Christmas Eve, and we always spend that at my Grandmother's house for Lunch. We ate, and ate...and ate, and sat around talking for a while. It's like a mini class reunion for me whenever this part of my family gets together. My cousin Scott and I were in the same class at school, and he and my other cousin Michael both married girls from our class as well. Together with my sister's kids, I think there were about 7 kids in all with us that day, but I can't be sure because it seemed like a lot more before we left! The adults played "Dirty Santa", but there was very little stealing this year. I ended up with a candle with the scent "Bird of Paradise". It smells good, but I'm not sure that's what a bird of paradise smells like. The smaller kids didn't understand the game, and when my dad got a gift card from my Aunt Delilah, her grandkids ganged up on him and took it back. It was like a tiny little battle of Gettysburg! When we explained that it was okay to do take the things from others in this game, he finally got it back. : ) After Grandmother's lunch, we went to Steve's parent's house to open gifts and have dinner. We had a great time there, too, but we were so tired that we didn't stay late. We went home and I think I made it to about 9:30 before I fell asleep.

Sunday was a wonderful Christmas day. We went to church for the worship service that morning, and then headed over to my parent's house to have snacks and open gifts. My youngest nephew, Seth, was foaming at the mouth to open gifts. I finally had to tell him that every time he told us to hurry up, we would wait another hour to open gifts. I know, I know...but it was the only way we got to talk or eat. My mom always makes this huge buffet of finger foods, so of course, we took full advantage. : ) We opened our gifts, and I showed everyone the birthday DVD that I had made for Steve, and afterwards my sister, me, Steve and Seth played a game of giant Jenga. The Jenga tower was about three feet tall, and it's HARD to play! It was a lot of fun, though. Steve was the one who knocked it over in the end. I think I like games that end with a loser rather than a winner! heeheehee. After that, we went back to Steve's mom and dad's house to open our stockings. Now, the Pratt tradition of opening stockings is different than anyone elses that I've ever heard of. Instead of actual stockings, we all have big gift bags and everything in them are wrapped. A stick of gum, wrapped. A fridge magnet, wrapped. I was in charge of stockings this year since Rhonda has been sick, and I think I went a little overboard. It took us the better part of two hours to open the stockings! It was a lot of fun, though. We also had dinner with them and Steve pulled out the two movies that they insist on watching every year. "Christmas Comes to Willow Creek" and "Babes in Toyland". For the past few years, I have refused to watch either of them, so I found a novel and read it while the movies were on. That might sound a bit rude, I guess, but you'd probably feel the same way if it were you. "Babes in Toyland" just scares me, I don't know why. It's really not any different from any other Disney film made back then, I guess, but it creeps me out. "Christmas Comes to Willow Creek" is the cenematic equivelent to jamming dull pencils into your eye sockets. I'm not kidding. It's schmaltzy, it's cheesy, and it's probably got more cliche moments per second than any other movie ever made. If a movie called, "The Movie of Christmas Cliches" was ever made, it STILL wouldn't be like this one. It stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider (post Dukes of Hazzard I think) as brothers who hated each other. Their ailling father asks them to drive a semi-truck full of gifts and supplies to a tiny failing Alaskian town, who wouldn't have Christmas without it. They would have to work together to get it to them on time, so not just one brother could do it. Of course, you can probably guess the rest. I saw this movie once, about 6 years ago, and I still twitch whenever I see the tape case come out of the closet. I avoid it as if it were an Ebola sandwhich.

All in all, bad movies or not, I had a truly blessed and wonderful Christmas. Now, I suppose, it's time to get back to the real world.