Friday, December 29, 2006

Christmas!

So finally... this will just about catch me up on my backlog of photos that have been building up in my digital camera... and I will make it quick since, frankly, anyone who celebrates Christmas has the same story as me from December 25th... you know, wake up, throw on some clothes suitable for photos, plop on the couch with a bunch of gifts, and snack away on unhealthy Entemann's pastries while listening to David Bowie's "Little Drummer Boy" for the 916th time on the easy listening radio station that has played nothing but classic Christmas hits 24-7 for weeks in a row.
My mom and I invited Miguel over to share in the festivities, and he arrived around 10am...

Here was the set-up...

... we threw in some fresh fruit & mimosas too.


And our stockings (not exactly hung by the non-existent chimney)...

... I'm a total sucker for stocking stuffers. Really, I love buying & receiving them! It's my favorite part of Christmas.

Here I am with one of my gifts...

... looking positively thrilled.


After gift time, as usual, we prepared a Christmas ham dinner.

And here's my mom just before delving in to the food...

... you can see that Maytag enjoyed our holidays too. My mom's been going through hell trying to get a new washer and dryer installed in her apartment because Home Depot screwed up her order and didn't send all the installation parts, which are all on back-order now. So the appliances are sitting pretty in the dining room because they don't fit anywhere else. Such lovely ambiance.

Anyway, I've skipped over the most important part of Christmas... sheer materialistic gluttony.

Forget the ham dinner (which was tasty)... here is some of the loot I brought in this year... In the food & beverage category:

... a much needed bread knife! Yeaaa!

And some funky posavasos (AKA coasters)...

... which my brother sent to me from Argentina.

In the literary category, I got this cool book:

... which details a Scottish diplomat's walk across central Afghanistan a few years ago.

And I also got this challenging read:

... which included a check for $100 for hair coloring from my mom!

Furthermore, in the beauty category my mom also got me this:

... a Lather moisture mask, which is a dream come true for my insanely dry skin.

Moving on to fashion, I got the Swatch that I asked for to replace my all-time favorite Saudi watch I accidentally ruined last summer after I went bodysurfing with it at the beach (oops):

So cute and very comfortable.

And speaking of cute, Miguel got me this great necklace:

... it's totally my style. Clean, simple, and yet slightly off-beat.

And from my dad, I got new luggage to replace the TJ Maxx crap I bought a few years ago that recently started falling apart:

Since my dad's a pilot, I figured he'd be the best person to recommend good luggage. He got me the TravelPro Crew 5 series that flight crews use. I'll give it a try going back to Tucson and see how it fares!!!

And that's it for Christmas. The last few days -- the post-Christmas, pre-New Year's week where life is in total limbo -- I've literally just been sitting around. I've been doing a little job hunting (aaaaccchhhhh!), I've made labels for my mom's Christmas cards, I've been watching a lot of the Discovery Health Channel, and I've been playing a lot of video games. Pretty sad actually. To be honest, I haven't even seen that many of my friends because it requires effort to coordinate everything (and actually, many/most of them are out of town right now or with family). But I figure this is my last real chance to indulge in unrealistic, college-student-winter-break-behavior, and damn it, I'm going to make the most of it.

Tomorrow I might even set my alarm for 10am!!

2 comments:

paintergirl said...

OOOOOhhhh. I love Lather. I like your hair too. How completely shallow of me, but it's nice.

JC said...

Bread knives are great. I've had one for a few years and I love it.

I had two Swatches when I was in junior high. I didn't know they still made them. Then I saw the Swatch store at the mall last weekend.

I seriously need some new luggage now that you pretty much have to check a bag (if you want to carry liquids and such). I hope yours holds up to the abuse those bastards dish out!