So Puralator finally showed up with that 'lost' package. Yay! All the presents were opened, mind you, but, whatever.....

There's always so much energy expended on detailing the crapiness of the holidays. So what did you get/do that made you happy? Tammy gave me 'The X-Men' on video and I swear I did a jig. Husband gave me Mick Foley's 'Christmas Chaos' and I have read it to my son every night. I got a 'Scum-buster' and have already cleaned the bathroom and my sister-in-law paid one month on my student loan. I gave my husband one ticket in a really good spot (level two, centre ice) to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Calgary Flames New Year's Eve. We finally painted the living room.

Come on, it must have been good in *some* way.....

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2000

Answers

Ours was quiet -- we opted to go back to New York instead of doing the Unseasonably Warm SoCal Christmas thing, and shuttling around between families. We just wanted to be alone. So we didn't really do presents this year (except for the Annual Christmas CDs). But we got to do a lot of kewl stuff in NY... especially Christmas Dinner at Tavern on the Green (where we saw Mayor Rudy).

The Husband-Type Man, however, rocked my world with his Christmas gift to me: a huge box packed -- PACKED -- with Barbie clothes he's been ordering offa eBay. :) There're outfits in there my Barbies used to have that're shredded to bits now. There's stuff I always longed for but never got. There's some gorgeous handmade stuff. There's tons of 80s stuff, because he knew I'd get a kick out of it. I can't tell you how spoiled my Inner Child is right now. :)

All in all, it was a good holiday.

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2000

I had a great Christmas. The City(my employer) came through with our bonuses so I was fortunate to be able to share a lot more with the less fortunate kids in town. I bought myself...er...my wife, bless her heart, bought me a new color head for my enlarger. Man am I stoked. I gots me a new watch but it is analog and I have to relearn how to read it. And I need glasses to read it also. I got the book The Darwin Awards, a new gel seat for my bike, the joy of giving a lot of presents to others and....a lot of shit from my wife about her piddly "little" present. Of course her demeanor changed dramatically when I took her to the furniture store and bought her the bedroom set she has wanted for a long time. I thought I might score with that one but oh well. I forgot what you score when you get enough points. Help me out here Bubba and Paul. I'm getting too old to remember that far back. james

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2000

In my house, when you get enough points you get to go to a hockey game all by yourself and drink beer and eat nachos and hot dogs and popcorn without your wife there to be all disgusted. Oh, wait, maybe that's what *I* get. Whatever.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2000

Whew! I thought I was missing something really exciting. Damn. James

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2000

Ok, buster. Now you've just plain gone too far. Don't. Mock. Hockey. ESPECIALLY Les Canadiens. You've been warned, sun-worshipping blasphemer. Warned.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2000

Uh..is there something in the ice and snow that has irritated you? I never dis the WWF...oh...I mean Hokey...er...hockey. There's got to be something better to do than watch a bunch of men beat the teeth out of each other and freeze to death doing so. Here we watch 3on3 B-ball at the beach or the Chargers lose or the Padres trade away the entire team. Or like me.....watch the women walk at the beach with their thongs and ride bikes with only bike pants and a T-shirt. Ok. I'll ease up. Oh by the way...what was the temp today? Did it get above zero? Did the developer thaw at all today? Come out any time sweetee. Love, James

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2001

I was kidding, goofball.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2001

I got this survival book that is totally cracking me up....I now know how to jump from a moving motorcycle to a moving car ("...be sure and kick the motorcycle away as you move your weight to the car. Sometimes, motorcycles will fall under the back wheels...") WTF? I love it! Tomorrow is my 40th B-day. I am sure scarey presents abound.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

OK, now THAT'S funny. But can you skin a bear now? Or take him out with a 22? Up here, there's not much call for jumping from motorcycles, but skinning a bear, well......

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

It doesn't have anything about skinning bears (I actually think I could figure that one out...isn't that scarey?) but it does have what to do if you confront a bear, cougar...etc. My favorite is for alligators: "..try to cover its eyes. This will calm him down..." Ah, yes, just call me the Alligator Whisperer..but seriously, I kayak around these dudes all of the time, and they are not into having their eyes covered...except , maybe for their 40th birthday!

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

Lisa D, I have that book too! I feel so much safer now that I know what to do if my parachute doesn't open. And happy birthday, and welcome to the 40s (I turned 41 on Dec 23).

My sister and I gave my mom some cut-crystal wine glasses and she loved them. Since I'd been the hunter/gatherer for this present, I was very happy.

I got lots of nifty things, some of which were chocolate. Oh, yeah...

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

My mother-in-law had TIAs (mini-strokes) at Thanksgiving AND Christmas and spent some time in the hospital. Everything's okay, there's no lingering effects, they're just scary episodes because we don't know why they happened or when they will happen again. So I'm glad my wife and I had flown to be with her each time, because it was only coincidence that we were there when she'd been hospitalized.

As far as gift-getting, I got a bunch of books I had asked for, all about design and creativity and filmmaking. Since it was all stuff I'd asked for, there wasn't a dud in the bunch.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

Happy birthday, Lisa D!

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2001

Happy Birthday!

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2001

Thank You! It's been a great day! Man, I'm just speaking my mind to everyone today....40 is going to be dangerous!

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2001

Well, yeah, it's dangerous. You're jumping from motorcycles to moving cars.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2001

My Christmas kicked ass. I got a bunch of fabulous gifts, most of which I didn't even expect. (Keli, I owe you a thank-you note. My e- mail's down right now...) Even better, I think most of the people for whom I got stuff actually really liked the stuff I got them. That always makes me happy.

Even better than that -- I got to spend lots of time with several friends.

New Year's Eve kicked ass, too. I really lucked out this holiday season.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2001

Yay, Gwen! That rocks.

Dwan, I like the CDs muchly. (The _12 Pains of Christmas_ summed it up for me: "BUY ME SUMFIN! (weh! weh!)", "She's a witch, I hate her...", "If you're so smart, why don't you rig up the lights?", "Five! Months! of! Bills!", "Oh for Pete's sake, I don't even KNOW these people on my card list!", "Hangovers!", etc. *howl!*)

My Xmas was good this year because I got to sleep in until Double Digits without my mother yodelling Christmas Carols at me to get me up at 5AM as usual, then my gran survived major surgery and I didn't get a furry brown hippie shawl or monkey-print underwear (though I did get lots of Avon toiletries my mom's students gave her that she didn't want, so I'm donating it all to a shelter or Goodwill soon and I now own, like, five cheap cameras I'll never use (Gwen, do you 'need' a blue Hello Kitty camera? It is really cute and I hate that I won't ever use it...LMK...if not, I think I have another Sanriohead locally that I can give it to...)) and THANK GOD everyone liked what I got or made for them. Yay!

I got Bowie, Jarvis, Brett and some more of my fave Britpop peeps' CDs in my stocking (ooh, er, crowded). I washed my grandmother's hair and set it, so we got a chance to chat a bit. We had a fire, my mother made her friend Anne's quiche (excellent), and I was a Santa-cap-wearing roadie while my mother and her friends played polkas and Xmas music at some nursing homes. I drew the line at wearing a crab on my head, though. My brother and SIL weren't there, which might or might not have contributed to the overall peacefulness of the holiday, but other friends and family were there. It didn't suck, except the part where my car died and stuff. Ho ho ho.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2001