2003-12-30 - 4:42 p.m.

I suppose I should say something about Christmas.

Actually, it was relatively peaceful, although I was *amazed* at the craziness at BWI at 5:30 on Christmas Eve *morning*. (Ugh. I am *so* not a morning person.... And I don't sleep well if I have to get up early for something like that, cause I'm frantic about oversleeping and missing the flight or whatever!) And we ended up parked in the back of beyond (Overflow parking) but made our flight with no real problems or anything.

We made it to Ashland in one piece, with no major hassles and it was lovely to see Mom & Tim & my sister. After some napping and present wrapping and what-not, we had dinner and then went to the carol service at mom's church (which I still think of as Grandmother's church). It bore only a slight resemblance to a train wreck, what with choir, band and congregation - the choirmaster had chosen some weird 'alternate arrangements' for some of the hymns, and has an interesting concept of tempo (he seemed to have two speeds - dirge and perky - and used them without any regard to the particular song we were singing).

*Rant on*

I (being the non-churchgoer that I am) usually manage to forget the hideous PC-ness that was wrought on the 1982 Hymnal until every Christmas when I get screwed up by their harmless little lyric changes. Mind you, I'm a pretty ardent feminist, but I'm also a poet, and I LOATHE some of the incredibly dorky changes they made to the hymns in the name of Political Correctness. Ptui. *Rant off*

Christmas was nice, although most of the loot this year was for Little Bit, my incipient niece/nephew. Steve gave me a beautiful pair of earrings, and I got some nice smelly stuff (lotions and the like). Christmas dinner was relatively festive (complete with crackers!) We even had a little snow on Christmas.

Friday we went to Jacksonville, a former gold-rush mining town and now a quaint pseudo-historic town and shopping area. Everything was overpriced, but we had fun wandering about, then we hit the mall for an after-Christmas sale, and I bought some much-needed work clothes (our office is casual, but I hate wearing things with stains or holes in them....) We had dinner and watched Animal House (Steve's DVD present from my sister and brother in law).

Saturday Steve & I took a break and went into town for some quiet shopping time together, which was nice. We had a pint in a faux-British pub ($10 for two pints! Eeek!) and a nice lunch at a brew-pub, and spotted some possible gifts for the Florida family. Saturday evening there was a party at my aunt & uncle's, which was a blast - my aunt is a good cook, there was some excellent South African wine (they run an import business), and we had a fun time.

Sunday we had an early brunch with my other aunt and uncle (who were down from Eugene, and who had been at the party but that was it in terms of seeing them), then more church and more train-wreck carols; the regular organist was out of town and the backup organist was sick, so the choirmaster played the organ with a couple of instruments to help support the bass line - it was pretty entertaining.

We did some more shopping (actually bought things this time!) and went home and packed, then in the middle of watching City Slickers that night the power went out due to the snow and windstorm. We had to be up at 3am for our return flight, so there was some chaos involved, but we made it, complete with sandwiches and snacks for the plane. There was some luggage rearrangement at the airport (new weight limits for domestic flights, and hefty fees for overage!) then we got to Phoenix and home again without too much difficulty. I read The Dark Lord of Derkholm on the plane, which was a hoot - I recommend it to all fantasy lovers with a good sense of humor.

So, we're home for about 48 hours, then off to Florida. Work, laundry, catching up, then off again. And tomorrow morning I have my review at work - how, um, exciting....

Later, all. Merry Christmas!

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