XII: Christmas Day

Mom by our front door on Christmas Day.

I may have mentioned this before, but technically the Twelve Days of Christmas begins on December 25th. In this day in age, most people are so relieved once Christmas is over, it's unfathomable that you would want to then celebrate the holiday for 11 more days! That's why I decided to end mine, rather than starting it, on Christmas Day.

We woke up in the morning and immediately I had to start getting everything ready. Dylan had set his alarm to wake me at 7am so I could put the breakfast casserole on in the crockpot, and luckily I got to go back to sleep for a couple more hours. Once I woke up, I had stockings to stuff and cookies to bake!

Mom, Dad, Adrienne, Brandon and Angie came over shortly thereafter and joined Dylan, Robbie and I. We all finished up our last minute stocking stuffing and gift wrapping and had brunch together. Then we all started our Secret Santa opening. Borrowing from the method we used at my work's Secret Santa on Thursday, we went in alphabetical order of the city we were born in. Angie was born in Indio, so she went first and gave her present to the person she drew in Secret Santa, and so on and so forth until everyone had their gifts unwrapped. Everyone seemed so thrilled with their gifts and it was so much fun to open them and "ooo and ahh" together. After the presents were openings, we did our stockings which was even more fun than the presents. Out of my gifts, I was most thrilled with a couple of homemade things from my siblings. My brother made me a CD called "The Fostex Files" which compiled a bunch of old recordings from his Fostex digital 16-track recorder. There were songs that had never been finished that he enlisted help of some friends to complete, including "Let Me Put My Love Into You" which had been started for Shitting Glitter, but finished by Invisible Material; a cover of "It's Impossible" from the movie The Valley of the Dolls which was meant to be a submission for the Patty Duke Fanzine, and a song which had been called "Lucky Bug" before but now finished as "Oh Brother" with vocals from my sister. Speaking of whom, Adrienne was my secret Santa and one of her gifts was an amazing homemade cookbook which featured great recipes from magazines, compiled and organized into sections by her and mom, with hand-written annotations!

The whole gang on Christmas! Dad, Robbie and Mom (front) with Me, Angie, Brandon, Adrienne and Dylan in our living room.

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm kind of the king of stocking stuffers, so I was very happy to watch everyone discovering the small treasures I had tucked down into their stockings. One of the best things I gave were tickets for me, Dylan, Angie and Brandon to go snowboarding at Mountain High. I made little tickets and put them in envelopes for each of us. I have only been snowboarding one time, shortly after I moved to LA, at Mountain High - and I've wanted to go back ever since!

After the present opening, Robbie left to go to her sister's house, and Dad and Dylan both wanted to rest. So me, mom, Adrienne, Brandon and Angie went on a "Wine and Walk," where we walked around WeHo with our wine (duh!) and visited Tara and a couple other local landmarks.

For our evening entertainment, we went to the Grove's Pacific Theatre to see "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which was a lot of fun! We all loved the movie and had a great time talking about it together afterward as we ate a late dinner at Canter's.

It was a really fun Christmas and I felt so fortunate to once again spend it with my loved ones!

Comments

Scarlet said…
Yes, what a wonderful, fun-filled day it was! I loved every minute of it!! Don't forget to blog Monday, it was fun too!
3:16 PM
Devin Tait said…
Well, Monday is after my 12 days of Christmas so I'm taking a break! My next blog will be my top 10 songs of 2011.
4:28 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Human League Albums: From Worst to First!

Image
My first favorite band was The Thompson Twins. I don't know how or why. When I was at the age where someone decides that they have a favorite band, something about the Twins spoke to me and I just became obsessed. While many people quickly move on from the bands and artists they liked as a child, I am not one of those people. Thompson Twins are still a favorite of mine, but over the years, other bands have replaced them in the top spot. One such band, The Human League, has been with me for almost as long. They had been one of my favorite bands since I was about 12 or so, but they moved in to first place probably around the summer after my senior year in high school, when they released "Octopus." Here are all their studio albums ranked from least favorite, to favorite! 10.  HYSTERIA 1984 The dreaded follow up Considering they are my favorite band, I obviously wouldn't say Human League have ever made a totally awful album, but this one is definitely the closest t
Read more

Amy Crosby, 1970-2021

Image
I met Amy Crosby in either late 2000 or early 2001, at a gay bar in the valley. I don't remember exactly which one, because I had seen her here and there at various Karaoke nights, where I had noticed her amazing ability to sound just like the artist she was emulating. Whether it was Cher, Alanis, Melissa Ethridge, or Traci Bonham, Amy would get up on stage and channel her inner diva. I think the first time I got up the courage to speak to her was at Apache in Studio City, which like many places I frequented in my twenties in Los Angeles, is no longer there. At the time she had her hair bleached blond and was adopting more of a "lipstick lesbian" persona, due to the fact that the "police were after her" after some sort of car accident or something. I thought, boy this girl is interesting! From the first moment we met she was telling me tall tales that seemed too incredible to be true, her (at the time) partner Von by her side, deadpan, not giving me any indicati
Read more

All the Thompson Twins albums (+ Babble) ranked!

Image
The Thompson Twins. They were my very first favorite band. I've been with them through the ups and downs, and the fall before last I finally got to see their songs performed by Tom Bailey, the frontman who was most responsible for the band's actual music anyway. Of course I would have preferred to see the whole band live, but it was really more than I ever imagined would happen anyway and was an amazing experience. Collecting these albums was a journey for me, the first of many similar journeys as I found and fell in love with other bands throughout my life time, but the Twins will always be the one that started it all! 10. Ether (Babble) 1996 The second and final release by Babble, the band the Thompson Twins eventually morphed into, is not really a bad album per se.  It's very chill and ambient and therefore easy to throw on in the background, but as a result it's just not that memorable. The only songs that stand out for me are "Hold the Sky," &
Read more