So, Xmas number 1 is over. Blinking tiredly I stumble into Xmas 2; well, I will do when I get to my mums.
Although my main present from my mum was ‘feeding a family for a month’, which I’ve already opened, so :-)
Anyway; yesterday, my cold subsided to almost sub-unwell levels, and after bouncing around like a maniac for a few hours, I Lauren woke up and we headed round to Nikki and Kate’s; stopping briefly to torment wake up John; and carrying with us the bounty of 1000 cookies.
So, we helped cook – but Nikki and Kate had already done pretty much everything (I made some yorkshire puds, and gravy (but I made that later :-) ). Nikki preparing what would turn out to be a huuuuge spread; and we sat, chatted, drank coffee, ate cookies, and watched Lauren bounce as she wanted to open her prezzies.
John appeared, looking rather less tormented than he had when I woke him up at 10, and we got down to the important business of opening presents… An Xmas Stocking (filled with junkfood, well, candy…and an apple*) and an Xmas bag (filled with sweeties, a USB ice-lamp and lots of other funky things) later each, and we got onto the individual prezzies :-)
People seemed to like what I’d got, which is good, because that’s the best bit; and I’m dead pleased with the stuff I got given… (Megatokyo vols 2 & 3, a Vincent HRD Black Shadow Advertisement… (which I maintain it was unfair to make me guess as it’s not *exactly* on my wants list, just related to something on my wants list :-P ), Megatokyo stickers and a Morris Minor book) I also got a cool “No, this is not my boyfriend’s computer” sticker which is frustratingly *just* too large to fit on my monitor surround! Gah!
Then we got into the big business of the day; eating. A huge and delicious spread was put out; with the world’s biggest turkey being carved until Kate got fed up with carving; and a pile of veg, gravy, cranberry jelly, yorkshires filling the table. We ate. And ate. And ate. And then we had a break, relaxing a while and washing up, before making a start on the desert; a declicious (and breaking Nikki’s trend appropriately cooked) Christmas Pudding. Mmmmm. Nummy.
And then we retired to play Civilisation, the board game. This was not entirely a success. Last played by Lauren 6 months ago, and at some point before that by Nikki and Kate; the first round was taken up by trying to remember or fathom the rules and game progress… and the second round with doing things wrong, and when it came to the third round we realised that it’d all gone a bit pear shaped and perhaps we should wait until we had someone who knew how to play it there; so that we didn’t have to spend the entire time reading the rules…
…so we switched over to munchkin; which proved to be an excellent decision; Lauren’s new munchin-foo providing a source of great entertainment. This gave way to The Simpsons Xmas Special followed by the utterly fantastic Dr Who Christmas Invasion. The new Doctor has aquitted himself marvelously; drawing enough from Christopher Eccleston’s style, and bringing just the right amount of new-and-very-different-ness to the role. The beautifully placed references throughout the episode also…just… I’m in raptures. It’s so good.
Before it was a preview for something I’ve been looking forward to since I read about it the day before yesterday ;-)
The same team as produced Hustle and Spooks have come up with Life on Mars which looks to be another entertainingly quirky and strange BBC TV series (you know, the Internet really is changing, I never expected to see ‘Find out more on wikipedia’ as a link from the middle of a BBC website). Anyway, so I’m looking forward to watching that.
Then I rang ‘merkia and chatted to mom, Kara, Kaisa and Trey… The connection was pretty terrible and kept dropping out entirely so eventually I decided it was better to save it for when I could actually *hear* them.
I then settled down and chatted whilst Nikki, Kate and Lauren thrashed each other at racing games :-)
And then we headed home. We’ve still got ‘l337’ scrabble to play, as well as Mau (‘cos I want to play that), spoons (but I think we’ll play on the floor, not on the table I spent half my summer revarnishing) and most importantly Things (caution: irritating flash site).
I’ve also got to think of what to get Trey for Xmas. For the most part I have loose ideas about what to get people (as in kinds of things) thought about way before I get them – and lists of things they like in my head so that when I go shopping I can spot things. I suddenly remembered that I’d seen something for John a while ago, so I know what to get him as a late Xmas present (if they’ve still got it) but Trey’s is harder; harder because we’re recently-ex’d, so a lot of the things that pop into my head are not appropriate; really; or maybe they are, but yeah, mmm, probably best not. And also hard because most of my ideas were centred around getting her stuff for the Hamster I was going to get her. But with her going back to America plans and my emmigrating to Canada plans (which will almost certainly take longer, but is a direction I’m currently planning in) it wouldn’t really be fair on the Hamster (because it’d have to spend, probably at least 1/6th of it’s life in Quarantine). So… Yes.
So now I’m a bit stumped, and I need to go and spend some time looking around shops and things, and see if there’s something there which… well… inspires me.
But anyway, now I’m going to get some breakfast and prepare to head off to my mums…
* also 2 clemantines.
