Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I talk about my Christmas fun. Things kind of started on the 15th when my department had a little Christmas party; nothing super big, just some people from various other locations coming to our place. I did get a poinsettia flower for our friend since they had extras after the party and I knew someone would want it. Nothing too spectacular though, but it was technically the start.
Things really started on the 20th when I went to my parent's house to do chocolate dipping with my mom, and help our accordion friend set up her life alert and give her her gifts. We got her a bag of hot hands hand warmers since those are good for her arthritis and a PF Chang's gift card since she likes to take us there. She got mskate socks and me a Pokemon Time magazine. I had 2 of them and now I have 3; Pikachu, Charmander, and now Arcanine. In addition to helping her get the life alert watch set-up I also installed a lock box in her door frame. She was really happy to have us all over.
After that we went to my parent's house. I started the chocolate in the double boiler, and as I'm melting it down it was getting kind of clumpy. That was not great since you can't really dip pretzels and potato chips and cookies in clumped chocolate. Mom pulled about half of it out and we tried adding water according to multiple sources. Well, that only made it worse, so we made what we call "Christmas crap;" when chocolate gets ruined, it still tastes good, so we clump it and stick pretzels and m&ms in it to make something fun that looks like poop (hence the name). We put it between parchment paper and flattened it out to add the stuff. We were able to melt down the other parts by putting it in the microwave. With that done we cleaned the pot and dried it REALLY good before melting more. That went along much better. It was a fun time and we made a lot of treats for the upcoming festivities.
After our dipping fun we went back to our accordion friend and finished setting up the life alert. We didn't know her son already got everything and we just had to activate. We showed her how it works and tested it. It worked in the house, so that was great. After that she took mskate and I out for pizza. We got a salad to split and it was quite good. Instead of pizza I got the barbecue cheese burger, and our friend was surprised I was able to eat it all. Mskate had some left overs so that was good for her. That was the end of that little fun.
It's now the 23rd, and I used my final vacation day. I had the day off, but not mskate, because she works for Santa at the mall, and I was going to see her, but only at the end of her shift. This meant I had some time to myself before I had to go up to the family. Well I filmed a "food review" of building a snap together model that I got last year and has been sitting on my dining room table waiting to be built. There was also a 2 hour window where bio and I could record a podcast, and so we did.
Going to the mall to see mskate was fun. She does stuff for the mall when there's a seasonal thing, and apparently I was wearing the same thing I did when I saw her last time. Kind of funny. After that we went to her parents house and got set-up for the half week. In the evening we went to the bar vikingpolak works at some time. It's a little local microbrewery where they make their own beer; and I really like their sour blueberry beer. They also have some pinball machines and a couple arcade machines. I got $5 in quarters and played the pinball machines. I also kind of accidentally ended up paying for everyone's drinks; I originally opened a tab just for mskate and I, but then she put her mom's drink on the tab (no problem there, I am staying at her house this half week), and then IRA got added (again, unexpected but his parents are putting us up), and then my parents showed up and they ended up on the tab as well (which is fine, they're my parents so I'll buy their drinks), so I guess I ended up starting the giving lol. There was actually something kind of funny with the pinball; I was playing the x-men table and the ball got stuck in the ramp. I told vikingpolak about it and he said he'll let the guy they rent their machines from about it. I could have fixed it myself, but that could have voided their warranty or something. That was it for the 23rd.
It's now December 24th, Christmas Eve. The morning at my in-laws was pretty calm, nothing super exciting. Noon is when things really started. Just a reminder, on Christmas Eve we go to McDonald's for lunch because when I was little that was when Santa would come to my grandparents, and we keep the tradition alive, even though my grandma is no longer with us and that was her thing. Mskate wanted to get a Grinch Meal but they were all sold out. We still got a happy meal with my points, and then got deals with everything else; a $2 large fry, a $6 10 piece mcnugget meal, and 20% off $10 or more (which we used with a quarter pounder meal and value cheeseburger meal). In total we saved $17. The food was good, fast food, nothing special but filling.
We now did the gift exchange with my parents on Christmas Eve since we didn't have my grandma this year. We set-up the living room moving the coffee table and positioning the presents with everyone getting in their positions. We got my mom a helium tank at the Party City going out of business sale since she likes balloons, and since it was big and would require a lot of wrapping paper we put it in a bicycle bag, along with all her other presents that were wrapped. Since it was a bike bag and was called a bike bag the joke we said was "we got you a bike since that's what comes in bike bags, some assembly required." We also got her some mylar balloons to inflate with her tank, and that was fun. We also got her a box of variety coffee pods since they recently got a kcup coffee maker and like the options now and princess plates and napkins, and a Disneyland sweat shirt. For my brother we got him some things that were of his interests; a power bank thing for camping, emergency blankets, a VHS copy of Strange Brew (he loves Bob and Doug McKenzy), and a Hot Wheels Barbie McDonald's cup based on a story from when we were kids. For my dad we got him some Peanuts comic things (socks and a magnet), decaf coffee pods, and speed racer. Now for my presents; I got peanut m&ms, peanut butter m&ms, spongebob socks and Patrick socks, Napoleon Dynamite socks, nerds clusters, a drone, a puzzle vase, some switch games (epic micky, hello kitty, and pacman world), a tigger jersey, some different PS2 gmaes that I bought on black friday, sunflower seeds, bullets, and star bills.
Christmas mass was Christmas mass. We went to my parent's church since we were in the area. Apparently at our home parish the priest gave the children snow wands, nothing like that at my parent's church. Mskate and I got there first so we found space for everyone. After mass we went back to mskate's parents for diner and some early Christmas. We had the spring rolls we got from a church acquaintance and meat balls. The spring rolls went over very well. Early presents went well. I got a voice modulator microphone, a gameboy lego, and a spongebob mug that IRA bought me when we went to Universal Studios. Funny thing, he bought it when we went to the Spongebob store and I was busy playing in the musical pineapple. The big winner present of the night ended up being the Go On DVD set we got IRA. I watched it back when it was airing and thought it was entertaining, and I knew he would enjoy it. Little did I know he would REALLY like it as does my father-in-law; we watched 3 episodes before bed time and the laughter was heavy. I also made my vase puzzle and it looks quite good. Before going to bed I started my "watch A Christmas Story on TBS" tradition. I came in with about 30 minutes left, and watched the first hour of the next airing, so all I had to do was watch the 3rd quarter to have seen it all.
Now it's Christmas Day, we slowly wake up as IRA is super excited to open presents. I watched the remaining quarter of A Christmas Story after waking up, so now I had completely watched all of A Christmas Story on TBS. We all gather in the living room and start passing out the tree. We got a letter from Santa about how the dogs were gone now. A lot of the things we gave were from Disneyland, and everyone was happy. I got gift cards to McDonalds, Chuck E Cheese, and Visa, a capsule machine lego, a table vice, a Gaston shirt, Rocket Power the complete series on DVD, warhead candy, chocolate marshmallows, some other candy, a Disney pressed penny book, a stitch rubber duck, a rabbit Ralphy stuffed animal thing (that I initially thought was a labubu), and many socks (popeye, kirby, snorlax, and yoda). One of mskate's highlights was a stuffed animal tower since our stuffed animal hammocks are getting kind of full. Afterwards we had breakfast, eggs and bacon with some cut fruit.
After playing around with some stuff and just relaxing, we went over to my parents for Christmas. Mskate and I went to CVS to get a present for our friend's Aunt Bird; she specifically asked for coloring books but all the coloring books were really expensive, so we got her a little lego creator stocking stuffer for $5. Mskate looked up the set online and it's going for a lot more online, and then because it was CVS I had a coupon on the receipt I was able to get another for 72 cents. We went to my parents and it was kind of different. My dad came down with something on Christmas Eve so he spent the entire evening upstairs in his rooms. It was still a good time. Our accordion friend came and our other friend with their Aunt Bird. PepperBC's family was going to join us, but they decided against it since my dad was sick and they have some health problems. It was really fun, we put on A Christmas Story to just let it run in the background, and we facetimed TanMan since accordion friend is his grandma and they're expecting. Dinner was pretty good, we had ham and chicken, green beans and green bean casserole, corn, and rolls. After dinner we did our sing-along with the accordion. The fun thing is we have these bell sticks that we made back in cub scouts with the other friend as our pack leader, so that was fun to say "look, the bells are still working." Whenever there was a song that mentioned bells we all shook the jingle bells. Then there was one song where I pulled out my new voice modulator microphone, which got a good laugh from everyone. IRA and mom-in-law came over for this as well. After the sing-along we gave the gifts to IRA and Aunt Bird, and they really enjoyed them. IRA got a special disneyworld football that was signed by the characters that was found while cleaning out another aunt's house, and a Courage the Cowardly Dog DVD set. It was a really fun time. Afterwards we just went to my in-laws and hung out until the end of the night.
The day after Christmas was pretty calm. Mskate, IRA, and I went to different stores for after Christmas sales. We went to CVS, Meijer, Target, and Walmart. We found some things, but nothing too spectacular. Later in the day IRA and I went to see Spongebob Squarepants the Search for Square Pants, and mskate and mom-in-law went to see Wicked for Good. It was a pretty funny movie. We had dinner at the movies, I had a Freddy Fasbear spicy pizza (pepperoni, jalapenos, and a "sweet drizzle" whatever that was). It was pretty good, and they delivered it to our seat. IRA had loaded French fries (fries, nacho cheese, and bacon). The next day we loaded up the van with all our presents and I'm loving having a minivan, and now it's just finding places for all our new stuff. I've found a place for about half of it, yay. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment