Christmas 2011

My family spent Christmas in Richmond this year. My parents and Ryan flew out from the West and the four of us stayed at a hotel downtown by the state capital. Here's how the holiday went down:

Thursday after work I drove to Richmond and met the family at my grandparents' house. Then my parents and I went to our hotel for the night, and Dad and I walked to Capital Ale House for a beer.

Friday morning Dad and I went to the airport to pick up Ryan. Then we wrapped a bunch of presents before meeting up with the whole family (including Grandma!) for pizza near Carytown. After that my parents and I visited the art museum, where I finally got to see the giant whale! After that my parents dropped Ryan and me off at the hotel for naps. Friday night the four of us saw the lights at the botanical garden, then had pho for dinner.

Saturday (Christmas Eve) I got up early-ish to go for a run, then we went to the grandparents' house where Mom got to work cooking posole, I made cookies (Sunni helped), and Dad and I ran last-minute errands, including stopping at four different stores looking for eggnog. Saturday evening we all went to church at 7, then went back to the house for our traditional posole dinner.

Sunday (Christmas) I woke up earlier than planned (too much Christmas excitement I guess), so I got Dad up to go for a Christmas walk with me. Then we headed back across town to the house, where cooking was underway. I made rolls. Everyone (including Grandma!) came over for lunch, which was delicious Beef Wellington. Then we opened presents. Later in the afternoon my family headed back to the hotel for naps, and once rested went back to the house for more eating and hanging out. I finally ate some pie, and we had a fire in the fire pit out back. Josh had joined us by this point, and he and I performed a song ("It's Cliched to Be Cynical at Christmas") for my family with his ukulele.





Monday we slept in a little, then Dad, Ryan, Josh, and myself went for a long walk downtown. We walked along the canal and then back through Church Hill, and everyone (including Ryan, despite what me might say) had a good time. After the walk we ate lunch at the Tobacco Company. That afternoon we went to the mall (a mad house) so Ryan could get new house slippers, and that evening lots of us saw Tin Tin.





It was a pretty good Christmas, I'd say.

pistachio sightings!

On Saturday I took a break from working on my papers (which are over now, whew) to go to Richmond for lunch with the whole family. Then some of us went and saw The Muppets, which I thoroughly enjoyed. When we got out of the theater I had a text message from Andrew with a pistachio sighting! He said it was "Outside the movie theater." Now this confused me for a minute, because I was outside the movie theater, and there happened to be a guy named Andrew with us. But he doesn't have my phone number, or I wouldn't have him in my phone as "Andrew," and thus I deduced this pistachio sighting was coming from Colorado, where my pal Andrew must have just seen a movie. Or at least he was hanging outside a movie theater. Either way, pistachio sighting!



This sighting reminded me of the two I had in Santa Fe at Thanksgiving, which I never posted. So let me share them now.





Happy sightings y'all!

semester wrap-up and the Christmas season

The problem with being in school is that stressful schoolwork butts right up against the holidays. Today I received a choice of essay questions, and I now have exactly one week to write two ten-page papers. That has to happen after work in the evenings and this coming weekend. So I'll finally be done next Monday, and that means you probably won't hear from me again any time soon.

But today I got a Christmas card from Uncle Richard and in it he said he likes my blog, so I thought I should write something quickly before tackling my first essay. I will take this opportunity to let you know that I haven't put up my little Christmas tree yet, and probably won't unless I succumb to a good bout of procrastination later in the week. But I did buy a little poinsettia and my parents sent me a nutcracker, which is displayed on a bookshelf with Christmas cards, so I'm not completely missing out on a holiday feeling in my apartment.

Okay, gotta get to work. After I eat something...