“Christmastime Has Come, There’ll be Toys for Everyone . . .”

Once again it is time to celebrate my favorite holiday of the year. This morning we opened our presents, since we’ll be leaving for Texas early tomorrow morning. This has definitely been the strangest Christmas I’ve ever had. First, it still doesn’t seem like Christmas because I’ve been so busy with school and work until recently that I haven’t had time to “get into the Christmas spirit,” as people say (I hate that expression). I haven’t even been to the mall since October, which is rare because I usually do my shopping there. This year, I either bought stuff for my family online or handed my Mom cash (I didn’t want to go to Victoria’s Secret to pick out lotion for my sister. That store frightens me). Also, I opened my main gifts early: World of Warcraft from Joe (we each paid half, so it was our gift to each other). I also received a rather nice drum set from my parents (and I’ll be paying for 35% of it or so myself). It’s a beautiful black Ludwig set including toms, bass, snare, throne, hi-hat stand, and crash stand. Unfortunately it didn’t come with any cymbals, so I’ll have to save up and buy them later. The head for the snare sounds like crap, as well: I’ll buy a nice Remo head soon.

A slight digression: I’ve started playing the drums (hence the new drum set). A friend of my brother’s needed a place to store his drum set a few months back, and Joe has been keeping the set in his room. In the past couple of months I’ve been slowly learning to play in my free time. I really enjoy it.

Back to the main topic of this post: this morning as we opened presents my Dad was a bit irritating. When he opened the box from me and my sister, he pulled out a white polo shirt and said, “Ooh! A girly man shirt!” My Mom was annoyed by that remark and explained to my Dad that it was a very nice shirt and was in no way effeminate. His next gift was a bottle of cologne. He sniffed it and said, “Is this for men?” My Mom pointed to the box where in large, bold letters it said: “For Men.” A few minutes later, I opened a Fourteeners calendar from my parents. I flipped through it and found a photo of Mt. Bross and showed it to my Dad and asked him to tell me which one it was. “Democrat! Er . . . no, um, Gray’s? Torrey’s? Is it Holy Cross? . . . Pike’s Peak?” He basically went through the list of every fourteener we’ve climbed and still didn’t get it, even when I said, “remember? The summit is often compared to a football field?”

In a few minutes we’re going to have lunch at P.F. Chang’s, my family's favorite Chinese Bistro (whatever that means). I’ve never been there, but they all say it’s wonderful. This evening we’ll go to church. For the past few months our church has been building a new sanctuary, and this will be the first service inside. It seats 7,000 and looks pretty cool. I think they'll have a musical like last year, so it should be entertaining.