Christmas day and shortly thereafter
Dec. 31st, 2007 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkThorin surprised everybody by getting up "early" (i.e., before 11am) and making breakfast for all - pancakes and scrambled eggs. What a nice thought - thanks, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thorintatge! He was so intent on doing this that he didn't even notice the Christmas stockings. Amber was scandalized that he'd been up for an hour and hadn't opened his stocking, but I thought it was fun to listen to them opening their stockings together from the other room, Thorin saying things like, "Whoa, there's some really good stuff in the stockings this year!" I was particularly proud of my idea for a really unusual present - a gift certificate to the dentist, although Thorin was kind of underwhelmed by it, I'm afraid. I guess finding a trip to the dentist in your stocking isn't actually every child's dream.
We ate breakfast and opened presents, which quickly split our family into the Two Types of People you find around a Christmas tree. There's the reasonable ones (that would be me and Thorin) who like to admire the wrappings first, then take some time to look at the gift after it's opened. And then there's the Other Types, who are always saying things like, "You're getting behind! Pick up the pace! You can take the shrinkwrap off later."
I got a very nice assortment of warm socks, ranging from lightweight angora (that will fit inside work shoes) to SmartWool hiking socks (which I use not so much for hiking as for keeping my feet warm in the house in the winter). Not one, but TWO little wooden tack hammers (we have several of them but I'm always complaining that I can never find one when I need it). I thought it might be easier to keep track of them if I wrote names on them, so I named them after Thor's goats. I also got a big cordless drill, which is something I've always faunched after. I know some people think practical things are inappropriate for gifts, but I'm the opposite. I hate getting stuff I can't use. I charged up the drill today and started drumming up little projects that needed doing so I could try it out. It seems to work fine, although it came with only 6 drill bits (???). I found an extra set of drill bits and stuck them into the case. A couple of family members had found me something I'd been looking for but couldn't seem to locate - spray-on body lotion. Now I have to remember to put some in my gym bag - I wanted it to spray on after swimming.
One of the coolest and most extravagant gifts came fromambertatge - tickets for the family to see a local show. She picked one I wouldn't have thought of that turned out to be a whole lot of fun: The Hormel Girls at the History Theater. One of those little bits of history nobody outside of Minnesota has ever heard of, but a big deal to the people who lived it. The music and dancing was surprisingly good, and they did a nice job creating 6 distinct, likeable characters to stand in for the 60-100 women who were actually on the tour at one time. Richard actually recognized one of the signature songs from their radio show in the early 50's. It's funny - being part of an "all-girl song and dance revue" doesn't exactly sound like an empowering feminist experience, but after watching the show I can see how it was. The original "girls" were all female veterans, which made me think of my mother (who as in the Waves). I think she would have enjoyed the show.
But I've jumped ahead - we didn't do that on Christmas. Christmas evening was spent at theminnehaha's lively party, always a highlight of the holidy season. I got to see both of the adorable babies (Jenny's baby Henry and buttonfish). Both of them have done that amazing growing thing that kids always seem to do when you turn your back for a minute. The highlight was seeing and hearing buttonfish fill in the missing word in the daddy-leg-horsey game. Honest, I heard him! lollardfish was stringing out the suspense on the last word, the one where baby gets dipped over backwards, and buttonfish got tired of waiting and threw himself over backwards, crowing "iiiiiinnn."
The next day, Amber and I went skiing again, this time at Hyland Hills Regional Park in Bloomington. It was her second time on cross-country skis and she was clearly getting better. I kept scooting along in the straight ski tracks, but she kept skiing along in the ski-skating track, which requires you to actually steer. Not only was she clearly getting the hang of controlling her skis, she was starting to get the ski-skating motion. I pretty much wore myself out just keeping up on the second lap around the Oak Tree Loop. It was fun, though, and nice to get out into the country, relatively speaking.
thorintatge! He was so intent on doing this that he didn't even notice the Christmas stockings. Amber was scandalized that he'd been up for an hour and hadn't opened his stocking, but I thought it was fun to listen to them opening their stockings together from the other room, Thorin saying things like, "Whoa, there's some really good stuff in the stockings this year!" I was particularly proud of my idea for a really unusual present - a gift certificate to the dentist, although Thorin was kind of underwhelmed by it, I'm afraid. I guess finding a trip to the dentist in your stocking isn't actually every child's dream. We ate breakfast and opened presents, which quickly split our family into the Two Types of People you find around a Christmas tree. There's the reasonable ones (that would be me and Thorin) who like to admire the wrappings first, then take some time to look at the gift after it's opened. And then there's the Other Types, who are always saying things like, "You're getting behind! Pick up the pace! You can take the shrinkwrap off later."
I got a very nice assortment of warm socks, ranging from lightweight angora (that will fit inside work shoes) to SmartWool hiking socks (which I use not so much for hiking as for keeping my feet warm in the house in the winter). Not one, but TWO little wooden tack hammers (we have several of them but I'm always complaining that I can never find one when I need it). I thought it might be easier to keep track of them if I wrote names on them, so I named them after Thor's goats. I also got a big cordless drill, which is something I've always faunched after. I know some people think practical things are inappropriate for gifts, but I'm the opposite. I hate getting stuff I can't use. I charged up the drill today and started drumming up little projects that needed doing so I could try it out. It seems to work fine, although it came with only 6 drill bits (???). I found an extra set of drill bits and stuck them into the case. A couple of family members had found me something I'd been looking for but couldn't seem to locate - spray-on body lotion. Now I have to remember to put some in my gym bag - I wanted it to spray on after swimming.
One of the coolest and most extravagant gifts came from
ambertatge - tickets for the family to see a local show. She picked one I wouldn't have thought of that turned out to be a whole lot of fun: The Hormel Girls at the History Theater. One of those little bits of history nobody outside of Minnesota has ever heard of, but a big deal to the people who lived it. The music and dancing was surprisingly good, and they did a nice job creating 6 distinct, likeable characters to stand in for the 60-100 women who were actually on the tour at one time. Richard actually recognized one of the signature songs from their radio show in the early 50's. It's funny - being part of an "all-girl song and dance revue" doesn't exactly sound like an empowering feminist experience, but after watching the show I can see how it was. The original "girls" were all female veterans, which made me think of my mother (who as in the Waves). I think she would have enjoyed the show. But I've jumped ahead - we didn't do that on Christmas. Christmas evening was spent at the
minnehaha's lively party, always a highlight of the holidy season. I got to see both of the adorable babies (Jenny's baby Henry and buttonfish). Both of them have done that amazing growing thing that kids always seem to do when you turn your back for a minute. The highlight was seeing and hearing buttonfish fill in the missing word in the daddy-leg-horsey game. Honest, I heard him! lollardfish was stringing out the suspense on the last word, the one where baby gets dipped over backwards, and buttonfish got tired of waiting and threw himself over backwards, crowing "iiiiiinnn." The next day, Amber and I went skiing again, this time at Hyland Hills Regional Park in Bloomington. It was her second time on cross-country skis and she was clearly getting better. I kept scooting along in the straight ski tracks, but she kept skiing along in the ski-skating track, which requires you to actually steer. Not only was she clearly getting the hang of controlling her skis, she was starting to get the ski-skating motion. I pretty much wore myself out just keeping up on the second lap around the Oak Tree Loop. It was fun, though, and nice to get out into the country, relatively speaking.
