Christmas 2005 in retrospect (and bah humbug!)

Haven't had much time to make blog posts, so here it is all in one fell swoop.

Dec 23
- After working a short shift at the store, I went to Alvin's for his annual get-together. As always it was fantastic to see all ther Carter-ites again and catch up on their lives. Unfortunately I spent most of the evening sneezing like a mofo because I was allergic to Alvin's little dog. The strangest part of the evening was when we took a roadtrip out to Whitby to see Zuzi's mom. Zuzi is in Senegal right now; and it took a while to explain why the heck we were crashing her parent's house. It turned out to be a lot of fun, lots of fun stories (and more dogs *sneeze*).

Dec 24
- Worked 3 hours in the morning the clinic. It was the usual stuff, and I wondered why I bothered rolling out of bed for 3 hours. Bleh. Aunt Lana didn't have their usual Christmas dinner on the 24th this year, but since all of the relatives assume it will happen no one made plans for the 24th. As a result we spent Christmas eve at home, I ate my mother's weirdness for dinner and then went to sing at midnight mass.
- Mass was actually a lot of fun *gasp!* because we sang so many Christmas carols. I felt like I was in high school again ^__^ I got to sing the high descants for all the old favourites and Paul didn't mind at all. Hehe, the one time of year I pretend to be a soprano. I stopped in at Coffee Time before the rehearsal for the service and bought a hot chocolate. I have never has such a FOUL beverage - I got a mouthful of salt at the bottom of the drink. YUCK!

Dec 25
- went to the church again, more mass, less singing. After mass I went over to Kevin's house where I watched some anime and took a nap. His aunt Ming had cooked up a storm all day and we had a delicious Christmas dinner. Afterwards we sat around and opened presents, ate chocolate and I drank most of the bottle of wine that my boss gave me for Christmas (I probably had more alcohol than all of the people at the dinner combined o_0" My tolerance is pretty impressive.) Not to make myself sound like an alcoholic or anything - it was a nice fruity rosé (don't puke JP. Yes, it was a rosé) and the alcohol content was only 10% so it was like drinking grape juice for me.
- After dinner we went out to the Scarborough Coliseum and watched 'Rumour Has It.' I don't recommend the movie. Even if you are bored - SEE SOMETHING ELSE! Enough said about that.
- This was the first 'Christmas' day that I've spent away from my family. Most years we go over to someone's house and have dinner so I see all of my relatives for 4-5 days straight. It gets pretty monotonous - the same people, the same food, the adults play a bridge game afterwards and the 'children' sit around, watch TV and want to go home. Spending Christmas with Kevin was a lovely change. - My favourite present this year is a gorgeous Swarovski necklace:


Dec 26
- worked 9-5 at the store. It was absolute madness and mayhem. People were buying things like they were free, which of course they were not -__-" The ridiculous thing is that many things in the store had already been marked down for over a week. Mind you, there are still some awesome deals and hardly anything is full price anymore. On Boxing Day people become crazed animals with no common sense or manners. Bah Humbug!
- after work our family went to a cousin's house for dinner. The annual 26th dinner is usually more pleasant than most. The food is decent, lots of "younger" people (meaning <30 yrs old) to chat with and usually my cousin's bf brings some bootleg movies to watch. A couple yrs ago we watched The Last Samurai. This year we watched a bit of Robots (before the disc glitched up) and Transporter 2.

Dec 27th (today) - worked 7am-4pm at the store. I was and am still exhausted. My body physically rejects being up so early -I felt nauseous for most of the morning. It was quiter than yesterday, but got crazier as the day progressed. Today just made me hate turtlenecks even more T__T"
- my grandmother wanted to treat the immediate family out to dinner, so tonight we went to a Chinese restaurant for a more 'traditional' meal. First off, I am not a fan of the restaurant we went to. The food was mediocre and ridiculously priced. For what ended up being a $385 dinner for 10 people, my dinner consisted of Jasmine tea, soup, more tea, more soup, a few bites of this and that, and more tea. I love my grandmother, but it was not fun at all. Add to the fact that my mother spent the first 10 minutes after we sat down complaining about this and that and annoying everyone, making herself cranky and irritable set the scene for something volatile - which of course ended up blowing up at me: over the way I hung my coat over the back of the chair. If only that woman came with a mute button.

So what can I say about this Christmas? My family, for all good intentions, have become an unpleasant holiday routine. I'd rather spend my evening wheezing at an old friend's house, or out seeing a movie. It was a relief that my aunt didn't have her house party on the 24th because it gave me a rest from the 'routine.'

Anyhow, it's over and passed now. No more of this politically correct "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings" crap.