It's officially Christmas

And I gotta say it would appear I have reached a time in my life where Christmas is just another paid day off. I mean yesterday on Christmas Eve I had dinner with my dad and step mom which was fun. I never really seem to see them despite living so close. Some would call that a crime I would instead call that simply how I have lived my life up until I moved here and to suddenly transition to seeing them all the time just seems weird so I choose to stay away. I received a wonderful Christmas present from them, a Pork Chop from Thundering Hooves. Don't feel bad for me though since they did buy me a new phone for Christmas 2 weeks ago so I did in fact get something awesome from them besides the pork chop. We stayed up until about 11 talking, or rather me listening to my dad and my step Mom's cousin Dan talking. Dinner wasn't anything big, or elaborate and fancy. Nope just turkey, roasted vegetables and green beans, with cider to drink. But it was enough and I enjoyed myself.


Then this morning, as has become a tradition when my step mom goes to have a fun Christmas brunch with her daughters and their families my dad and I go off in search of a restaurant that is open on Christmas so we too can get breakfast. For the second year in a row we have had to settle for IHOP, or as my dad calls it "the international house of cream and sugar". The roads were horrible but we survived our trip there. I had some weird creation of theirs combining coffee cake and pancakes simply because I wanted the large breakfast platter of eggs, hash browns, sausage and bacon that came with it. I forget what dad got. We chatted for a bit, then in search for something to do while we waited for Catherine (the step mom) we went back to dad's and watched an interesting photoshop tutorial DVD that I'm pretty sure only he and I could find interesting. After she was finally done we headed out and picked her up while listening to KEXP's interesting take on Christmas music. Never in my life have I heard such annoying songs in my life. But then again KEXP is the local hipster radio station and in order to be hip in Seattle you have to pretty much drown in irony and sarcasm.

So yeah that's my Christmas. No huge parties. No tons of presents. No children sleeping under the tree. And yet, I kinda like it this way. I mean sure I want all those things, but part of me thinks that the less stressful and busy Christmases help you appreciate the highly stressful ones you have later in life. I know I already appreciate all the ones from my youth that much more that is for sure.

Anyway I just wanted to take this time to wish all of my faithful readers a Merry Christmas and I hope you had one that you will remember for a very long time.