Christmas Chronicles

Hello friends.

I guess it's been a while since I've really blogged. Whew, sometimes you need a vacation from your vacation. Its been a pretty busy holiday. I've really enjoyed having some time off work though.



Christmas Eve with 'Chung's family was pleasant. We did a gift exchange between the siblings and spouses while each of us bought something for 'Chung's parents and nephews. I really enjoyed this because it made the gifts part of the evening seem like much less of an ordeal. Rather, the evening centered more around our traditional Christmas dinner (hot pot) and the hymns we sung together (with Dwight's talent on the piano surprising us all).


'Chung's sister had drawn his name and him a pair of new Nike sandals with the air bubble in the sole. He really likes these and we've had trouble finding them in the past few years. I don't know how she does it.





'Chung's dad surprised us all by giving us each an iPod. 'Chung had also given me one before (and he engraved it with a verse), so my mom got mine. He also made sweatshirts for each of us with the Chinese character for our name painted in calligraphy on each one.



We spent 4 days, from Christmas morning to the morning of the 29th with my mom and family. Christmas day was pretty mellow until the evening when we went up to Ash. and Eric's house after Ash. got off work.

We had dessert and exchanged gifts with my dad, his girlfriend, Arlene, and Lauren. The conversation stayed fairly light until someone began asking Lauren how things were going. Evidently my dear sis. hasn't been doing very well lately.

Lauren then detailed how her "former boyfriend/dealer and now best-friend in the whole world" had been arrested for counterfeiting and possession of drugs and went on to detail her experience watching the counterfeiting process and the help she'd given them in spending the money. The whole thing didn't last very long though, and a little over an hour after they came, they left. We spent a little more time talking to Ashley and Eric before heading back home. Eric made a very accurate observation when he noted: while his family has very little real drama but make it as theatrical as possible, our family life is teeming with it, but we minimize, ignore it, and pretend it isn't there.

Mom and I had a chance to do a bit of shopping on the morning of the 26th before Ashley and Eric came down to her house. We waited most of the day for Lauren (who had gone to court to support the aforementioned man and finally, when she got there we had dinner and exchanged gifts.

We also had decided to do a gift exchange, and again it went very pleasantly. The next day we had a nice visit and lunch with Dana and Josh. In the evening Mom cooked a delicious dinner (a rare occasion these days).
The last day, we had a great visit with my mom's former roommates K. & C., who moved to Florida last June and are expecting a little girl in April (I think).

We flew home the morning of the 29th and have been doing stuff non-stop since. We had different overnight guests two nights, went to a reunion party for 'Chung's high school, and had a little New Year's eve party. A dear friend and her new boyfriend came over (and we went to Indian food, yum) to celebrate my birthday on New Year. Yesterday, it was back to work for me and we had dinner with 'Chung's family at our favorite Chinese restaurant (stuffing ourselves silly) to celebrate birthdays: 'Chung's sister's (today), his nephew's (Dec. 30) and mine (yesterday).

I'm looking forward to settling down a bit and having a pretty light workload for the rest of the week.