Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas (or whatever you happen to celebrate)

Tony really went all out this Christmas, like a crazy man. I'm spoiled. (Mostly, I think he's trying to make up for all the travel he did this past year--but we're working on that -- that's why we're moving)

He stood in line forever to get me a deluxe Scrabble edition (though he may be regretting that now since I kicked his butt on our old Scrabble set last night) and found an artist that makes these really cool wire horses to make one for me. I'll have to take a picture of it later. It's really beautiful. I've been wanting one since we saw them at an art show a couple of years ago. Then the really big gift that was totally unexpected -- a new desktop media PC. We've been needing one, but I kind of just thought we'd get one after we moved and had things like cable again, even though my old desktop was sooooo slllooooowwwww. The new one is really cool and really fast. I'm typing on it right now. It'll be really, really cool once we get it all hooked up to a real sound system and our projector and whatnot. Really really. We'll have to stock up on popcorn for movie nights.

My big gift to him was a really nice copper saute pan. Mauviel from Williams Sonoma. I'm going to slowly replace all his old pans with nice new ones. Though now I wish I'd gotten him two pans instead of just one. But I also got him something that isn't here yet (so I won't say what it is in case he reads this) and some other miscellaneous stuff. The pan was the big thing.

Mom sent a bunch of old pictures, which made me all teary, especially some baby ones with me and dad. I don't think I'd even seen some of them before. And two photo albums to put them in, so I'll have to go through and organize them. I had serious coconut head (i.e. fuzzy Asian-baby hair) when I was little. Dad called me coconut head.

Lisa got me a covered casserole dish that's part of the set of China that I inherited from Grandma. Very pretty piece. It's not at all our style of china, but it was Grandma's, so it is special to me. I want to get enough pieces together (Grandma started me off with a complete set of plates, a sugar dish, and a creamer) to do Thanksgiving with. I'd already bought two pieces last year -- a gravy dish and a platter. So I'm getting there.

And Pam sent a cute little "catikin" (wooden cat manikin) that goes along with my human figure one. Maybe it'll help when I paint Gracie and Harley...or not, since Grace has that huge layer of blubber over the top of everything. And she also got me a candy thermometer (you know, so I know exactly when the hard ball stage is).

The relatives also sent wonderful fun stuff too -- beef jerky (that Harley got into, the jerk -- but I managed to save most of it) and cookbooks from Auntie Dot & Uncle Ray, a pretty t-shirt from Uncle Jensen, a restaurant gift certificate and some dish towels from Auntie Es & Uncle Herb, and a wine tool set from Uncle Wil & Auntie B.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. That was the big big stuff though. It was a good Christmas. But mostly, I'm just thankful that Tony is home. He's going to have to work this week after all, but at least it sounds like he'll be working from home. So that's something. That's all I really want - time with my hubby.

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