Thoughts of LoWriter

Yay Christmas!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, in another forty minutes, Christmas will be over for another year. I really didn't feel like I got as geared up for this one as I usually do, but I felt like it went much more smoothly than it usually does. I made a committment not to go overboard, and I (mostly) stuck with it.

I got to meet the sister's boyfriend, who I don't actually hate. I thought I would. I prepared a Nice Long Talk for him, which I may still give since she is my youngest sister, and I've always felt the need to protect her more than the middle one. He wants to come over for a game night and play some of my Cheapass Games, and that's an important characteristic in a young man that my sister dates. Also, he laughed with us the entire time he played his new plug and play arcade game. It's rare to find someone that thinks we're as funny as we think we are. I guess he can keep dating her.

Speaking of plug and play arcade games, I got Ms. Pac Man from my sister for Christmas. It also has the old arcade racing game. It's excellent. I don't really like the new Nintendo/N64/Game Cube/whatever games. I get annoyed because there are too many options. Call me a nerd, but I like my Pac Man more than anything else. (Although Samorost on the internet is pretty good, too, but that's more of a puzzle and less of a game.) At any rate, this is excellent because when I want to play, I can plug it in, and I can't buy any more games for it, so when this gets old, that's all I get. Personally, I don't want to spend money on anything that's going to waste more of my time.

The great thing about the game is that I actually had time to play it because I am taking a nice long vacation from my stupid jobs. I'm working on my proofreading/writing gigs, but not for anybody but me. Someday, I hope to work solely for myself and nobody else.

Also, I definitely got everything I asked for this year except a cheese grater. Well, ok, not everything because I make it a policy to ask for a lot of things so that I don't know what I'm getting, but I got everything I really really wanted. The biggest of these was the Lord of the Rings extended version, widescreen, DVD trilogy.

My favorite part of Christmas took place again this year, which is Christmas Eve. My immediate fam, my grandma on my mom's side, and (usually) my best friend from high school all get together and have candle light supper. My friend couldn't come this year, but we still had the candle lit meal, and it was still excellent. We have chicken kiev by candle light, then Dad reads the Christmas story, and then we open a present or two, hang out for awhile, and go to bed. There's something very comforting about it. That will be always be Christmas for me, especially Dad reading the Christmas story by the dim light. He always tries to get someone else to do it, and we always make him do it because he sounds the best. He always whines about the candle light, but you can tell he likes it just as much as we do at this point. Sometimes, I think our conversations could be a script because we do the same thing every year, but that's part of what I like about it. No matter what happens, we will always read the Christmas story together by dimmed lights, and so I will always have Christmas no matter whether we have presents or not. Even if we are not all together always, we will always have that story at Christmas. We are to the point where we could recite it. That is what I expect out of Christmas. The other stuff is icing. It's great (who could deny that icing is awesome?), but it's not neccessary for the heart of the matter.

All in all, we had a fairly relaxing holiday. The puppy unwrapped all her own presents (which was unexpected and hilarious), the goodies flowed like honey, and nobody got hurt. An excellent holiday all around.

So, here're my questions: A) What's your favorite Christmas tradition and why? B) What was your favorite present this year?

Merry Christmas 2004!

Posted by LoWriter at December 25, 2004 11:42 PM