I'm going to warn you beforehand. This will be a looooooooong post. There is a fair amount of frivolity and misadventure to report. None of it, of course, has anything to do with my writing except to say this:
I still haven't heard anything from Tor and I've decided to extend my short break from writing into the New Year and just read and recharge my imagination.
Now that's out of the way... how was your Christmas? Mine was fantastic. As in brilliant and fun, not unbelievable. In any case, it began Christmas Eve. I was fortunate enough to get a half-day at work and so only had to work until half past twelve. Then I left work with my father (I got him a part-time job in the same office) and went to his place for bacon and eggs. I believe the term is "brunch" when you have breakfast at lunch time. I don't care. It was delicious.
There was a party at my cousin's very large, very beautiful house in Aylmer, Quebec. That didn't start until 8pm however, so Dad and I killed time by watching movies. They were his Christmas gifts from me... which I made him open early so we could watch them. Star Trek came first. I'm not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination, but I really enjoyed that movie. The next was Terminator: Salvation. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't have high hopes for that one, but the action was good, and the story line was relatively interesting.
The party was lovely, of course. I must say, the Carrière family and all it's affiliates (you know, families that married in) is full of warm, wonderful people. It was so lovely just to be surrounded by them for a time. We stayed quite late, well and truly passed both our bedtimes (Dad and I can be quite lame sometimes. I'm usually in bed around 10:30pm). We were exhausted by the time we got home. I think it was around 1:00am. That's normal for some people, but I need my sleep!
We were lovingly woken by the shrill sounds of the Skype ringer around 7:00am. Australia was calling, and I blissfully answered. I spoke with my immediately family, all of whom except Dad are still in Australia. The exception was my eldest sister, as she was staying with someone who didn't have all the necessary things for Skype, like speakers and microphone. Oh well! There's always next time. In any case, my family were all well and happy. It is so lovely to hear from them!
Tired, Dad and I went back to sleep! We woke around midday (that's 12 noon for you North American folks) and had porridge, finished watching Terminator (which was still on pause from the previous night), then went and got ready for Christmas Day celebrations at my aunt's lovely house, also in Aylmer.
My family has this wonderful tradition whereby each person buys a gift - one gift only - in a theme. This year's theme was "begins with either 'J' or 'N', or 'M' or 'C' for Joyeux Noel or Merry Christmas." Long theme, I know. A woman must buy for her gender, and so must a man. All the gifts are placed according to gender beneath the tree, and a game is played. The winner of each round gets to pick a gift. Once you've won, you can't play again. It's a lot of fun. This year's game was "The Game of Things." I've played it before this, and it is hilarious fun!
I won myself a beautiful set of Christmas mugs. My aunt Jacqueline has amazing taste! I'm breaking those out at Christmas next year!
Exhausted, Dad and I retired relatively early, sent back with more food than we could possibly devour in one week. Score!
I stayed over Christmas Night, before heading back to the kitties on Boxing Day. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and didn't get any photos of the event. I'm kicking myself for it now.
I slept most of Boxing Day before heading out to the movies with Dad once more. We watched Avatar in 3D. Can anyone say frikkin' awesome?! Avatar was basically Fern Gully on steroids. The storyline wasn't really all that original (though had original elements), but the movie was nonetheless absolutely spectacular and I urge any and all to go see it. I cried. Of course.
I had gotten Chapters gift cards for gifts this Christmas. Thanks so much K.C. and J.S. for them. Because of you, just before I went to the movies, I was able to get 4 books for 36 cents. You guys rock my world. Thus, my collection of Steven Erikson and George R.R. Martin grows. Lovely!
I went home to find that Jazz had returned from her cottage Christmas with... a keyboard! Yay! Jazz plays the piano, and when she moved out of her parent's home, she left the piano behind. I contrived with her parents to get her a keyboard, so she could still play. That reminds me. I owe Jazz' mum some money for that.... I'm very happy there will be music in the house. Jazz has promised to teach me how to play. This should be interesting... I'm not the most coordinated person around, and having one hand do something different from the other at the same time might be a bit tricky for me, but I'll give it a go anyway!
I was so impressed with Avatar, that I made Jazz swear we'd go see it on the 28th. Thus, yesterday afternoon, Jazz and I headed out for some Avatar love. It was just as awesome the second time around. Oh, and Jazz cried too. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
We returned home and got to talking and, rather suddenly, we decided we wanted a Wii. So away we went again, on the hunt for a Wii. There were none at either EB Games or Zellers in the Billings Bridge Plaza. So we headed off to South Keys. There were none at Future Shop or at Walmart (I generally don't like to shop at Walmart, but desperate times, people). Future Shop noted that there was one at the Merivale Mall location, so off we went again, just in case. Nope, all sold out there too... and at the Best Buy next door! It was a very disappointing, very fruitless search... and I was quite sad, since I was looking forward to playing Wii while Jazz was off in Boston for the New Year's celebrations. She leaves this morning and doesn't come back 'till Saturday evening. Le sigh!
Never fear, however. We've both got it in our heads that we are getting a Wii, so when Jasmine returns, we shall try again! We're both a little stubborn like that....
Alright. I shall stop torturing you all with my inane non-news. Hopefully there shall be some news about my writing soon! I hope everyone's Christmas' was as wonderful as mine!
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