Christmas past

Christmas. You spend so much time anticipating it and preparing for it, and then all of a sudden, it's over. And you're expected to go back to your normal life. Well, okay, not me, not really. I have a whole week off after Christmas: time spent snuggled under a blankie on the sofa, surrounded by dogs and coffee cups and stacks of books. It's a good week.

It has been a wonderful holiday. I spent way too much on Grayson, but it was so much fun to watch him open presents. He was totally not expecting the Xbox Kinect, and frankly I'm not sure he's all that excited about it, but he'll grow into it, and I'm hoping there will be some games we can play together. I sent it along with him to his dad's so that they can play with it together. Technically Gray paid for half of it, so he should also reap the fun of playing it with G. The big hit this year was the Creepy Bug Maker, which Grayson played with almost nonstop for all of Christmas afternoon and evening.

No. No, the big hit was the gift Grayson gave to me. He was so excited. He went shopping with my parents a week ago and picked out something that he was so thrilled with, he tried several times to get me to open it early. He insisted I open the first gift of Christmas morning, and brought it to me with much ceremony and barely contained excitement.

It's a beautiful white-gold pendant: two open hearts curving into one another. He had seen it on a commercial for Kay jewelers, and I guess I made a comment about how pretty it was and that nobody ever buys me "pretty shiny" things. So he dragged my parents through jewelry store after jewelry store, looking for it. My mom tried to talk him into getting one with diamonds on it, but he had made up his mind that this simple white gold one was the one he wanted. When I opened it, he explained to me that the little heart was for him, and the big heart was for me. It is beautiful, and I did admire it in the commercial...but I love it most because he loves it, and because he chose it for me with a heart full of love. I'll wear it always. What a dear, sweet, boy I have.

Our Solstice party was a great success. We had about 15 guests, which is a very full house for our little space. I bought way more wine and booze than I needed, and prepared way too much food, but it was a really good time, and so nice to have a house full of friends. I was half afraid nobody would come. The terror of the less-than-socially-adept. But plenty of people did come, and I think everyone had a nice evening. Bob brought a stack of vinyl and spun records for us all evening. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I just never got around to it.

I'll do it again. Hell, I've got enough food and booze left over, I could do it this weekend. But I won't. It took me two days to recover! Even the dogs were exhausted.

Now all I need to do is take down the decorations and the tree, and spend the next few days relaxing and preparing for the year to come. Resolutions later. For now, just coffee and that stack of books....