Christmas!

First, let’s get this shitty picture of the Holland Christmas tree (the opportunities for getting pictures of it with all of the light strands working were very limited) out of the way:

Also, here’s my cat being supercute:

I worked Sunday night, and after a nap Monday afternoon, we headed to Tiffin for Christmas Eve.

We went straight to Jim and Beth’s house for tasty Christmas Eve dinner and some Swiss Family Robinson watching.

Here’s a picture of a bunch of Links watching the movie together:

After a suitable amount of obligatory (though mostly enjoyable) family time, we went back to Randy and Lis’s house, where Brian and I watched Hangover 2 On Demand! and then spent the least comfortable night EVER on the old air mattress…we’ve slept on it a ton of times, and while it’s never been quite like a real bed, it’s never been as keep-you-awake terrible as it was that night. I don’t know what the/our problem was. I had only slept, like, 3 hours on Christmas Eve day, so I REALLY wanted to sleep, and it just was not happening.

We get up early on Christmas day to open presents and have breakfast with Brian’s parents. Here’s Randy looking at the photo book of us that we gave them because we give terrible, self-centered gifts:

Here is Randy and Lis’s Christmas tree…it is cute, for a sad, dead tree:

I got a spice rack (with free spice refills for 5 years!) and some other stuff, including a calendar that featured these gems:

We taught Lis about Grumpy Cat:

After a tasty breakfast, we headed back to our house. Here’s our couple photo for this Christmas (shoutout: Australia):

We exchanged presents, and I was embarrassingly out-Christmassed.

My Dad brought his mostly thawed turkey over for some on-the-fly spatchcockery and thrown-together meal preparation. We had no gravy, and some things that I like to make from scratch (cranberry sauce) were store-bought, but it came together quite nicely…I didn’t think the turkey was much smaller than last time, but we may have even overcooked it doing only 80 minutes. Spatchcocking is CRAZY.

Matthew and Amanda came over to hang out for a while and exchange presents. Here’s Amanda watching a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr_cn66sYc8 – watch it, you won’t regret it)  about the four-headed arm-like penis of the Australian echidna:

Other Christmas photos:

Matthew and Amanda brought me this book that they found on their trip to California:

(I do not think I know enough/am a good enough knitter to make a cat.)

Here’s a braggy photo of some of my presents I got…

Yes, I did get some books about travelling to Australia and a rechargeable hand warmer.  And! a special therapy light for people who are SAD!!1!  I have used it twice, but I’m already knee-deep in a run of terrible scheduleness, and I’m not expecting MIRACLES.  Maybe once I get out of fluctuating scheduleness after New Year’s Day, my life will improve drastically.

We all got each other UT stuff this year…we’re going to need a new hobby for next year:

My most anticipated present from this Christmas (TOLEDO EL GNOMO!):

My peoples were supposed to be around this week so that I could see them and their spawn and whatnot.  Early this week, the forecast was calling for 8-12 inches of snow on Wednesday, so everybody either fled NWOhio early or postponed their trips.  It was very reminiscent of the great Groundhog Day Snowmageddon (that cancelled Dara’s and my plans to go to Punx) because we got a fraction of the snow they had forecast. We ended up not getting enough snow to fully cover the grass…THANKS, BABY JEBUS FOR RUINING ALL THE FRIEND CHRISTMAS. (Also thanks, work schedule, for making me feel so miserable this week so that even if people had been around, I most likely would have preferred to lay here and do logic problems like the gross sloth I am).    Whatever, the New Year will be better, I said for the 20th consecutive year.