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| Christmas, relatives, coffee, gifts... |
| 12.25.06 (10:21 pm) [edit] |
Hey everybody!!! I hope you all had an AWESOME Christmas! Ours was great... it's really the best Christmas Eve/Christmas we've had in a while, it was just perfect and SO much fun.Yesterday evening, my sister Jennifer came over and we opened all of our gifts (it's our tradition to open everything on Christmas Eve night). I'll name some of the stuff I got in a minute though. Jen was awesome last night and we really had a great time with her! Dad loved the whip I bought him and thought it was hilarious (read explanation here), heh! Dad's good friend Randy dropped by as well and stayed for a bit, then after he left, we walked down to my aunt and uncle's house for a visit. My cousin Kelly (who now lives in Tampa) was in town and it was great to see her. Funny, I never really saw her too much when she still lived here, but after she left I really, really started missing her a lot. Mine and Kelly's old friend/neighbor, Jennifer (yeah, another Jen), was there as well, and we spent a few hours reminiscing and catching up on all the CRAZY gossip of this whacked out neighborhood that we live in. Brought back a lot of memories!! We left there around 11pm and drove Jennifer (sister) home, but we first swung by up to our friends' neighborhood in Pompano to see some awesome Christmas lights that were set up a few streets over from them. There's about ten houses on this one street that go ALL. OUT. I mean seriously, it's absolutely amazing!! SO, so pretty. I can't imagine how much work it took! I got some really beautiful pictures of it, too. Then we took Jen back to her apartment (where Dad found some metal mailboxes that he and my Grandpa had installed there a LONG time ago - they were still there!). She has a nice little place... a little messy, LOL, but perfect size and the apartment buildings are real cute. Jen works at Starbucks and gets a lot of free coffee, so she gave me a couple bags. I was REALLY excited about making my first, very own, pot of coffee. Our friend Caroline had just given me a nice coffee grinder, and I had brought out and cleaned Mama's old little coffee maker. I love that thing, it's the perfect size (makes about four cups), and I think of her every time I see it! Aside from having been REALLY dusty, it still looks like it's brand new. I went online to figure out how to clean the dust from the inside and found a page that told me to fill the water compartment 1/4th of the way with white vinegar, the rest of the way with water, and run that solution through it twice. Then, run plain water through it twice to get the vinegar out. Worked like a charm!! Anyway, I made my first pot of coffee last night. It wasn't bad, but I made it again for everybody today and it was a lot better the second time around. That brings me to everything that happened today! OMG, I hosted Christmas for the first time this year!!! We just had Darrell and my Grandma over, and I mean... WE have hosted Christmas before, but... but... this time *I* cooked everything and set up the table really pretty and cleaned the kitchen and lit candles and stuff. It was real fun! I cooked sweet potato casserole (which I feel the need to brag for a moment and say how everybody loved it), corn on the cob, and made coffee for me and Darrell and Grandma (Dad don't drink the stuff). I'll give credit to Darrell though, he cooked the steaks!! They were awesome... filet mignons - we got them dirt cheap too, like, $5 a pound (a local Winn Dixie was going out of business and had everything on sale). We didn't have a LOT of food, but it was PERFECT. Everybody was full, and the only leftover I've got is a tiny serving of the casserole (which I'll hog down for breakfast tomorrow, LOL). Then we sat around chatting and drinking eggnogg... it was just so nice. I was surprised, it was all fairly easy to clean up and put away, too. I just threw all the dishes in the dishwasher, washed the saucepan and coffee pot, put the holiday placemats away, cleaned the table, and... that was it. Darrell left us with a pumpkin pie as well, which we'll dig into later. And now, for all the crap I got!! Let's see... from Daddy, I got a really funky and psychedelic lava lamp thing (it's not exactly a LAVA lamp... it's hard to explain), a PotC LIFE game, money, white underwear (as a joke because I always tease him about his "tighty-whities" ;, so now I can match him, haha), a poster of Jack Sparrow, an awesome neon-lit clock that's real 50's styled and has a "Starlight Drive-In" advertisement on it (we needed a new clock in the PC room - the Three Stooges one broke), a black t-shirt with skeletal pirates on it, some velvety scrunchies, and some nuts and sweets for my stocking. FOR Dad, I got him the whip, an absolutely beautiful Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt (it's REALLY cool... has flames and the newer 30-year logo on it, with a rebel flag inlayed on the wings and it's very...metal looking), a little cast iron lawn jockey (he's always wanted one), and for his stocking, the 25th anniversary special edition of The Blues Brothers (which is more for me than it is for him, and I told him so, LOL. It's got a ton of new special features!). I also got him Trading Places and a Blues Brothers DVD of some old concert footage (which again are more for me, but I know he'll LOVE them as well), but they've not arrived yet. Let's see. From Jennifer we got a pretty plate-rack to hang on the wall, and a PotC edition of Battleship - cool!! From Grandma I got the most ugly piggy bank you'd ever see (but in a good way, it's so beat up looking and has huge teeth and it's sitting back on its haunches and... it looks like a hillbilly pig - so adorable!), some cute sunglasses, a watch, a mini TY bear, a...Grandmotherly angel thing (not sure what else to call it, but it's so pretty!), a camoflauged fanny-pack (which was a joke), a pretty green shirt, some Irish pajama pants, and some fuzzy socks. She also contributed to helping pay for the pretty Westernish backpack I ordered from Avon earlier this month, so I'll say that's partly from her too! My aunt Joni got me a cute kinda-army-style green purse, Brendan got me an awesome Harley Davidson leather backpack, and my uncle Jeff and aunt Cyndi and cousins gave me some cute holiday socks with... A WAL*MART GIFT CARD. I'm... excited about going to Wal*Mart. LOL. Well that's most of it, I think. We're going to Parrot Jungle with Tree and Danny on Wednesday, so that's the next thing I'm totally stoked about and can't wait for. Here's some of the pictures I took on Christmas Eve as well. First to last: Dad with his whip, Jennifer in the dining room (she's a total hippie, LOL), our neighbor Jen with me at my uncle's house, my uncle Jeff and cousin Kelly with their gorgeous tree, Jeff's lit cross that's in their front yard, the front of our house with our lights (yeah, we really went ALL OUT this year, hee!), two pictures of all the lights on that street we stopped by, and... I had to take a picture of everything with my first pot of coffee, ha! That white coffee mug was Mom's, it's HUGE! I think I have another one of hers that's even bigger, heh! Anyway, that is all - I'm gonna get off here and go watch PotC with Dad... it's airing on TV tonight! I've already missed most of it, but oh well. A nice ending to Christmas, methinks.          |
posted by: Kelly (reply)
post date: 12.30.06 (7:59 pm)
Hi Mal!
Those are some great pics! I'm glad you had a wonderful Christmas!
The pictures are awesome! I love the lights in Pompano, so pretty!
The picture of you is good, you cut your hair since last I saw you, it looks good! :)
The gifts you got sound awesome too! :D (Lots PoTC is always a good thing :)
And glad your dad liked the whip :)
posted by: dustyjumpwings (reply)
post date: 12.30.06 (8:02 pm)
Reply to: Kelly
HOWDYYY!!!!! Thank you ma'am!! I can't believe how great the lights pics turned out! And yeah, I just got my hair cut before Christmas!! Dad sorta... hacked it, LOL, but we fixed it and I'm getting used to it now.
Haven't played the PotC games yet - they're still sitting under the tree!
