Christmas

Ohmigod.

So, for the entire week before Christmas, my semester had ended. So I was knitting from dawn til dusk. By Wednesday, I was really nervous & had caffeine pills & Tylenol (for my aching fingers) close by & didn't sleep Wednesday night or Thursday night. Friday night, my mother told me to sleep because the sleep deprivation was effecting me badly. A big duh, I know . . . but being sleep deprived, it didn't occur to me. So I slept Friday night Saturday night knitting during the day. Now this was all on the afghan & I still had one more fluffy scarf (all the ladies got fluffy scarves) & for 5 guys I had wanted to knit plain scarves. Hell no. I gave my mother money & sent her to get Scott a cigar, Smitty a memory card, Sean a book, & Brian a leather card-case (that he had once pointed out & proclaimed it to be an ideal gift). There. The guys were done. But I finished the afghan Sunday night (mind you, we were leaving early in the morning on Monday for NJ) so my mother & i stayed up until 4:30 in the morning; I with my knitting needles, she with rolls & rolls of wrapping paper, bags of bows & rolls of ribbon. Then we woke up at 6, showered, packed, & I knitted until Brian arrived to drive us up. Vikki's was about half a foot shorter than everyone else's, but she was opening her gifts that day & wouldn't be there for Christmas, so I told her that everyone else was getting the same thing she was, varying only in colour & so she should open it in the car before we got there. It was the truth. I did NOT lie. But no one knew she got ripped off. And she only got relatively ripped off.

The afghan turned out far larger than the pattern called for. The pattern wanted it to be somewhere around 4 by 6. It turned out to be 8'3" by 5'7". Woops.

However, it was well paid off with Scott & Santina’s reaction. It was intense. There was tearing of the eyes, I kid you not. The whole gift opening process stopped & there were hugs & some of the most enthusiastic displays of gratitude I’ve ever been blessed with. She started to fold it back into the box & stopped & said, “Wait a minute, this isn’t going back into the box” & went & draped it lovingly over a chair in the living room. After that, every time someone else came into the house, she took them into the living room to brag on the afghan. And by the way, she's wearing her scarf in the picture below. :)

The rest of the morning was lovely. My mother got Brian a light saber & herself a light saber so they could fight with them when he opened it. These things are amazing. They have a sound effect to power up, power down, “idle,” “hum” (when you swing it) & the best damn one, CLASH. They SOUND like light sabers. TOO COOL! They were $120 a piece, but when you buy two, their only $100 a piece & my mother had credit card reward gift cards . . . 2 $80 cards . . . so she spent $40 on two light sabers. Which are probably going to be worth A LOT someday. They’re losing the rights to make them so fast that it would probably be impractical to get the three year warranty because they won’t be able to replace them. But we KNEW that Brian would be right on top of things when he saw the shape of the box. So we labeled them as from Sybil & Mitch to my mother & I. Then when I was given Brian’s light saber, I took off the top label & there was a label underneath it that said to Brian from Angela. And I went, “Um . . . this says To: Brian . . . here, dude.” & he freaked. It was awesome.

I made out like a bandit. I got 4 mugs to add to my collection. A Chorus Line mug, a Chicago mug, a Spamalot tankard, & a Curtains mug (which I already had, but too bad, I’m keeping them both, & like them both, & I love that I can tell the difference between the one I bought & the one I got as a gift.)

AND among many other things, I got KILLER RABBIT SLIPPERS!!!!!! To quote Scott, There are bunny slippers . . . & then there are bunny slippers & THOSE are bunny slippers.

Then the rest of the visit was fiddling with toys, watching movies received as gifts & playing on the Wii (not a gift, but a popular choice of passing time nonetheless). If you’re not familiar with the Wii, basically, the controller is a ‘wand’ with a sensor on it. It’s wireless & you use it as whatever you are using in the game you are playing. If you’re playing tennis, it’s a tennis racket & you swing it & your little person swings their racket. I did a LOT of playing & we got a lot of videos, which I'll post someday, I assume. Man, I am SORE. It's a whole lot of exercise. And my mother & I fell in love with it, so she's been trying to track one down & is just getting laughed at. The demand is apparently beating the supply & there are waiting lists that go on for months.

Anyway, Brian & I were playing tennis & there's a split screen so you stand a bit off to the side, but you subconsciously want to be where your person it, so you inch inward in front of the screen. Brian & I got to close & & swung his 'tennis racket' right into my left arm. REALLY hard. The next morning, I had a wii controller - shaped bruise on my arm which was actually really pretty. It looked REALLY bad, but didn't hurt too much.

And now I'm off to my father's. Then Sunday morning, we're headed back up to NJ for New Year's!! Yay!