Very Merry

Its been a pretty great Christmas season- in spite of the fact that I've been working a lot- some very nice things have been happening.

1. I've been officially inducted into the "Awesomeness Hall of Fame"- its true. I have the certificate to prove it. Not only that, my very dearest friends had a party for me. Actually, this is J's handiwork. I've been hinting that I've wanted to host a little get together. J's not one for the parties, so he had been pooh-poohing the idea, all the while covertly planning a party for me. Marrying me was supposedly not sufficient proof that he thinks I'm a swell gal, so the party's theme was my "awesomeness" another friend was brought into the plot to drag me out of the house while food and friends were assembled. Many friends. Not to get too sappy, but when you see many of your friends and family together it makes you very grateful and I was pretty humbled to see them all. J had everyone sign a certificate which he framed. Sweet.

2. We got enough money from our kicker check to pay some bills and get new brakes on my car. Those things are important. I like to be able to stop a key moments, like red lights, children crossing streets, etc.

3. I was able to spread holiday rancor and unhappiness unwittingly at my place of work. I bought a bunch of ecclectic and bizzare, yet with a few traditional Christmas favorites on i tunes, which I made into a Christmas CD, which I took to work gleefully anticipating that everyone would love these Christmas tunes. Wrong. Here are some comments from my office:

"I hate the theme from Nutcracker and everyone's playing it"
"If my cube neighbor doesn't stop playing that Mariah Carey song, I'm going to break down this partition." (normally, I would agree that Mariah is an abomination second only to Celine Dion in annoying diva songtresses, but I love Mariah's version of "All I want for Christmas")
"My God, this is truly awful" (Neil Diamond does an extra cheesy version of "Winter Wonderland"- so bad, its good)

Someone did complain about the Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters song "Mele Kalikimaka"- I can't cut slack there- only a communist would dislike a Bing Crosby Christmas song.

4. We had a nice Christmas. Allie and I made fudge and more Christmas CDs to give to family- Allie did a very creative, cool cover design- and called the CD "All Star Christmas Songs- something for everyone to hate"- is it really Christmas if you can't sew holiday unhappiness through bad Christmas songs for your nearest and dearest? I didn't think so. However, there is a song for everyone to hate, but there is also a song for everyone to love. Sort of like life. The fudge was untainted goodness though.

We had J's brother and J's brother's huge Bernese dog Ziggy over for Christmas dinner. Which made it an unhappy Christmas for kittycito. He either glared imperiously at the dog from the top of the sofa, or cowered angrily under the Christmas tree.

Dinner was good- perhaps my best mashed potatoes of all time. We also had very nice salmon. Allie made our traditional "Jesus cake"- after all its Jesus' birthday, so he should have chocolate cake with frosting, sprinkles and "Happy Birthday Jesus" on the cake. Allie's dessert was much more successful than my attempt at a cranberry loaf- it didn't thoroughly cook, then I overcooked it and it became so incredibly heavy and dense- it was like a black hole that sucked in matter. It was the size of kittycito but weight of an elephant. I ended up tossing it.

5. Even though I've been eating loads of crappy, fatty foods and desserts for like the past 6 weeks, I haven't gained a pound. A Christmas miracle indeed. And I found really great fitting jeans at an after Christmas sale today.

I'm going to look on the no weight gain as a supernatural seasonal event though, and get back with the walking and eating somewhat decently now...

My quote for this holiday season "I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, old and new"- Ralph Waldo Emerson.