On the next five days of Sockmas, my true love lavished me with even more decadent goodies: toasty cartoon hand-snuggles, effulgent office trees and coruscating christmas boxes, smiles and yulebombs from across the oceans, and shiny new toenails after stolen moments with best friends.
And the next five days of Sockmas, my true love went wild with an office fort, gigantic pine post-decontructed unwreathing wreaths, Hawaiian laundry lines, and scads of family mementos.
AND THEN on the penultimate five days of Sockmas, my true love buried me in Happy Hour chocolates of an Advent variety, gonged me with handy hand weights, and buried me in swag and booty.
But was it over yet?? Tra la la la
On the Twenty-First Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me... Amazonian profusion, advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, Dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
I finally decided to risk opening all those boxes stored up in our pantry with the conviction that they were likely pre-wrapped. Good thing, too. I have a tendency to whisk any boxes addressed to Mr. (or Mrs. - I, too, support my husbawife in all his gender identities) Wright during this season, lest he succumb to a mad afflatus of temptation and rip the packing to shreds before our appointed day of madness (and family love yadda yadda yadda). This can be problematic, since some of the gifts may actually be purchased _ by_ him for - for instance - me. So now, he can go through them all and identify any Adella related pelf instead of panicking that amazon forgot him this year.
Oh the boxes we've collapsed. I, of course, have done zero wrapping so far. I'm closing in on finalizing my Christmas gifting for the year. Dan Father of the Pink Beard is reluctantly back in town during a transition from grad school in DC to grad school back in the middle east (Beirut this time). He has not purchased gifts. He rather needs to. I've had a hearty tradition of accompanying him on last minute gift hunts. My main role seems to be to encourage him to buy all sorts of truly awful and inspired objets d'anomie. I think one year several back, I did convince him to buy a small sculpture pig from the Pike Place Market for his father. It was a damned sweet little sculpture. I'm not sure his dad got it, but we at least enjoyed it.
I have a few odds and ends I'll need to grab as well before the wrapping bacchanalia begins in earnest. But first, to the mall! The horror. I feel morbidly compelled to share this experience with Father of the Pink Beard, but I have been a wee bit under the weather lately and I'm not sure that this cavern of chaos won't plunge me straight over the abyss just in time for Xmas. Fingers crossed!
Hey, maybe we'll get Santa photos and go to Chipotles (new to our mall)
Happy Sunday! May it be a very truly fun day full of mistletoe (hanging, not eaten), wafts of pine, and mouthfuls of cookies!
On the Twenty-Second Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me... One final two-day work week, amazonian profusion, advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, Dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
Whew, buckle your seatbelts for a high scaled unstoppable work week! Or two days of half operations that may or may not be punctuated by wrapping breaks. I'm also planning to go to lunch with my buddy Azita today. Technically, I was supposed to go to lunch with her last Thursday but I was feeling several fathoms under the weather and attempted to defer. Didn't quite work, as my text message evaporated into the ether, but the message was effectively communicated when I did not show for lunch and eventually was located via telephone communications. Sigh. I hate standing people up. So I could basically be missing a leg and puking up mistletoe and holly and I would still be going to lunch today. Luckily I haven't attempted to eat any of the Christmas decorations yet, so we should be safe on that account!
My excursion to the mall yesterday was... an experience. I've earned my Christmas fur-stripes. Amazing how hostile and disoriented people come this close to the big day. I thought there may be actual bloodshed, but mostly, it was just people bouncing about like coked up pinballs in a multi-ball stage. I can say that we survived though. And while I did not directly come out of it with any final gifts, I did manage to "help" Father of the Red Beard purchase a few items for his dad. My help largely involved slowing us down long enough to actually stop at a store or two instead of merely plowing through in a harried fever. Always the hardest part about shopping in the mall at holiday time.
And whatever gifts I have left to buy, somehow downtown shall suffice. Or brotherly love and the holiday spirit! Maybe handdrawn pictures??
Whatever else, we're almost there and work is getting nothing approximating a fair shake this week. The Christmas cards are stacked against it!
On the Twenty-Third Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me... Early Christmas Eve(!), one final two-day work week, amazonian profusion, advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, Dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
As a reward for being the child of a dual post-dissolution type home, I get two Christmasses. I'm sure it's all very lovely to have parents who stay together and whatnot, but does seem like throwing all your holiday chocolate eggs and oranges into a single stocking. I like how at any given time Mr. (Adella W)right and I are welcome at at least one of fourfamily gatherings. All of which are pure family. Of course the geographical aspect of some of those gatherings tends to favor a two-and-two approach by holiday, but the options are still nice. And the staggered celebrations are always plentifully in abundance hereabouts.
Tonight's Christmas Eve Part One. Time to hang the stocking, finish wrapping, and get our Chinese restaurant experience on. I think I've actually wrapped almost all of my presents. Except for one of Andrew's. Sadly, one of my favorites for him, though I suppose I could replace it. I put it somewhere oh so deliberately to hide from him and now... ah well. Um, I guess the boy needed a New Year's/Welcome Home From Skiing present too.
And for the Christmas on Christmas, my dad and I have been coordinating for some kind of meal or other. He caught me a bit by surprise last night with a text asking if I needed any ingredients for the dishes I'd proposed making (butternut apple soup and red rice Thanksgiving pilaf). Required a deft scurry through my recipe annals and I left some things out to be sure.
We also discussed dessert options. Although I'm not particularly interested in the sorts of sugar bomb treacle that my dad and Andrew enjoy, I can kibbitz with the rest of them. He had wanted cake over pie. Because ... cake, I guess. But the cakes at Fred Meyer's were poor specimens. Second route of attack was to make a cake at home. I proposed adding peppermint candies (too much of a PITA, I hear), or at least peppermint or mint chocolate chips. I guess he went with (meh) white chocolate, which I felt was superior to marshmallow fluff at least. Upon arriving home, he realized that he did not actually have any cake mix.
I proposed getting several Hershey's bars, covering them in peanut butter, and the white chocolate chips, then some pretzels on top. He countered with potato chips and I upped the ante with chocolate fudge, to which he called at peppermint ice cream. We are going to have some interesting gustatory excitements on Christmas day at this rate.
Or he'll just make brownies and bury them in ice cream. I sort of suspect this will the be the final result. But one never knows!
And while I dream of choco-potato-chip-peppermint-peanut-fudge (yikes), I bid you a happy Christmas Eve before Eve!
Ho ho ho!
Tonight's Christmas Eve Part One. Time to hang the stocking, finish wrapping, and get our Chinese restaurant experience on. I think I've actually wrapped almost all of my presents. Except for one of Andrew's. Sadly, one of my favorites for him, though I suppose I could replace it. I put it somewhere oh so deliberately to hide from him and now... ah well. Um, I guess the boy needed a New Year's/Welcome Home From Skiing present too.
And for the Christmas on Christmas, my dad and I have been coordinating for some kind of meal or other. He caught me a bit by surprise last night with a text asking if I needed any ingredients for the dishes I'd proposed making (butternut apple soup and red rice Thanksgiving pilaf). Required a deft scurry through my recipe annals and I left some things out to be sure.
We also discussed dessert options. Although I'm not particularly interested in the sorts of sugar bomb treacle that my dad and Andrew enjoy, I can kibbitz with the rest of them. He had wanted cake over pie. Because ... cake, I guess. But the cakes at Fred Meyer's were poor specimens. Second route of attack was to make a cake at home. I proposed adding peppermint candies (too much of a PITA, I hear), or at least peppermint or mint chocolate chips. I guess he went with (meh) white chocolate, which I felt was superior to marshmallow fluff at least. Upon arriving home, he realized that he did not actually have any cake mix.
I proposed getting several Hershey's bars, covering them in peanut butter, and the white chocolate chips, then some pretzels on top. He countered with potato chips and I upped the ante with chocolate fudge, to which he called at peppermint ice cream. We are going to have some interesting gustatory excitements on Christmas day at this rate.
Or he'll just make brownies and bury them in ice cream. I sort of suspect this will the be the final result. But one never knows!
And while I dream of choco-potato-chip-peppermint-peanut-fudge (yikes), I bid you a happy Christmas Eve before Eve!
Ho ho ho!
On the Twenty-Fourth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me... Magic Christmas PJs, early Christmas Eve(!), one final two-day work week, amazonian profusion, advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, Dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
Let the celebrating surge to its proper froth! Per our Christmas Eve Eve traditions, Santa made an early visit to spread some cozy comfy wonders. I am bedecked in fuzzy watermelon adornment and magical sparkly shoes. Andrew has new pajamas as well!
This morning there shall be stocking gifts to exchange and then breakfast and then presents and then lord knows but it shall be holly and Molly and full of family cozies. No doubt photos will be shared.
This morning there shall be stocking gifts to exchange and then breakfast and then presents and then lord knows but it shall be holly and Molly and full of family cozies. No doubt photos will be shared.
On the Twenty-Fourth Day of Sockmas... Well I got Christmas, take one.
With Seahawk pillow pets and heaping cornucopias of stocking goodies
And Christmas breakfast after the traditional inspection of the dining room lights.
Gigantic cookie tins
And plenty of love
Plus Molly, Dylan and Emma came by and gave me gifts of the tangible and oh-so-intangible variety. Seeing my best pal and her differently awesome children definitely counts as one of my top Christmas gifts of the year. And Emma liked the toy I couldn't restrain myself from purchasing for her!
One the Second Incarnation of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me... Um... more Christmas!!
This time out was with my Dad at his nifty Victorian house and twenty million years of history (family and otherwise). We had a big cooking extravaganza - Butternut Apple Soup and Black and Red Rice Risotto from me, some kind of marinaded turkey for Andrew and the father figure,
...pineapple cranberry sauce,
... salad, and asparagus. And of course dessert. Which would have been cake, but then it was brownie, but then it was brownie-cake, but then my father didn't follow the ingredients so it had kind of a texture all its own, but that's ok when you drown it in peppermint ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce apparently.
Given the copious quantities of chocolate bars emerged from various unwrapping excursions, I think we could have skipped making dessert all together and just declared open season on the edible gifts, but ah well. I did buy my dad a potato chip chocolate bar in honor of our conversation about dessert earlier.
But it was fun, we celebrated and ate and sat around like logs.
And what of the epilogue? Well there's plenty more to come. As the celebration of light emerging from the darkest hour wraps up with eclat, we look forward to a sparkling and effervescent New Year. I have the highest faith that 2015 will sparkle and glimmer, never failing to surprise, and stories yet untold will expand a thousand fathoms wide as they unfurl along unanticipated alleys and avenues.
Until such time, I'll nibble my five billion bars of chocolate, reheat my tasty soup and raise a mug to you all. A Very Merry 2014 Holiday Season to you all!
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