... I've ever had. The mood was joyous, everyone was happy to be together, all went as planned. You know how sometimes family can get together and people get on each others' nerves and stuff? Well, this was pretty much the opposite of that. If anyone did get on anyone else's nerves, it didn't show. It was very pleasant. The one thing was a really bad headache I got on Christmas Eve over at Brian's grandma's, but other than that, it was great.
We also gave and received many, many gifts. Granted, we have 3 families involved but we really, really got a lot. I put everything on our dining room table. In case anyone's still reading this blog, or for when I/we come back to this entry in the future, I want the record to be clear - I didn't do it to show off. People were asking, of course, what we had gotten for Christmas and I couldn't remember everything. That really bothered me because we had gotten so much that was so cool that I wanted to be able to give credit where credit was due, as it were, but that was precisely the problem - we had gotten so much and it was one celebration after another, so I kept leaving things out. Hence this documentation.
Including what we gave each other, we got:
- A (large) donation in my name to Heifer International, specifically to a knitting project (2 sheep, 2 llamas that they can then use to sell yarn with, make products to sell, etc.)
- 2 knitting books
- 1 mag subscription (Martha Stewart Living)
- Cupcake series: Book, stand, giant cupcake mold, supplies
- Box of greeting cards
- Word game Origins
- Movie series: Silent Screen comedy
- Clothes - several pants, several shirts, a tie and a really attractive tie clip
- All red kitchen implements (spatulas, etc.)
- Red stick blender
- A brownie pan designed so that they all have edges
- Gift certificates/cards to Aya Sofia, Sekisui, BreadCo, Amazon, DressBarn, Whole Foods, one of my favorite knitting shops, Knitorius, Barnes & Noble, FYE
- Day of the Dead t-shirts w/themes
- Flat screen TV (from the dogs to Brian; he has to pick it out because the dogs and I don't know from flat screen TVs)
- A rice cooker to supplement the birthday present I gave Brian, a how-to-make-Sushi kit
- AAA cards for each of us
- An absolutely fabulous scarf pin from Brian to me
- A toaster oven
- 2 very nice sheets sets - 100% cotton, 700 ct
- A scrapbooking organizer
- Salad dressing that someone had mentioned to me a couple of months ago that we might like, and brought it for us
- An old-school Canon camera
- Family pictures
- Tree ornaments
- Silver earrings
- A funny thumb drive
- Hot chocolate supplies, a knit hat, and a can of pringles ( :-) ) that we got at the rob-your-neighbor game at Grandma's
- Miniature nativity scene for my collection
- A copy of the family cookbook we made for my mother-in-law
- A diary for each of us
- A book for Brian, The Prisoner
- A special print from the US Dept. of Treasure on our birth year and its significance in the Chinese Zodiac calendar
Wheew! If that isn't something to be grateful for, I don't know what is. If I haven't mentioned anything, it's not to offend, there was just so much on the table that I might not have seen it on the picture while I was blogging and listing everything out. Here are some detail shots.
While the stuff is great, it's what's behind it that's important. Each family member received and gave us something. That means, among other things: We have relationships with every single one of our sisters, moms-in-law, etc. They took the time to pick something out, get it, wrap it, etc. We are blessed that we don't have any estrangements in the family (you know, like siblings that don't speak to each other for 20 years or whatever). Everyone in our families was physically healthy enough to go procure something for us. Everyone is sufficiently stable financially to do that for us, and we are financially stable enough to reciprocate. In this economy (if in any economy), that is something to be tremendously grateful for. Although the Christmas holiday is about 28 hours of family fun (with a couple of small gaps for rest/sleep), we are close enough geographically that, in the space of 28 hours, we can see everyone and even most of our cousins/extended family. Although we have both lost our dads, we are blessed with a Grandma, both of our moms, all of our siblings, and many close relatives and friends. I mean, the individual items are great, but that's what they symbolize.
This year, we got a lot. Other years have been leaner. But ALL of the years, the relationships that the gifts represent have been there, aging like so many fine wines, into the fabric of our lives.
