My sister and I decorated the tree, using some paper decorations
we'd made a few years ago, as well as some antique ornaments that came
from my paternal grandmother.
This year, we were blessedly not awoken at 3 a.m. by chanting
and drumming outside our window, something which happened last year,
apparently a tradition of some culture or another. From the languages
and the voices I heard, I assumed it had been African. But this year,
as I said, we got a good night's sleep.
I got up early and took Una for a walk around the downtown.
She was experiencing cabin fever, since I hadn't walked her for several
days. The snow had piled up in my suburban neighborhood, and many people
didn't clear their sidewalks. This meant for the first several blocks,
I had to walk in the street, a prospect I felt was not terribly wise,
given I was about 17 weeks pregnant.
My hometown knows how to deal with snow, and their sidewalks
were perfectly clear. Of course, I believe they also received less snow,
since the snow primarily stuck to the coastline.
Una and I checked out the shop windows and holiday decorations,
and I took some pictures. Here are a few. I'll share more later this
week.
Back at Dad's place, everyone was getting up. My sister
and her husband made us all a fantastic breakfast: English muffins with
eggs, Canadian bacon and cheese. I helped make a fruit salad, which
we did the easy way by using bottled fruit.
Traditionally, my family had always opened our gifts in
the morning, but it's no longer possible to do that when two members
of the family (myself and my dad) have to work in the afternoon. So
instead, we did so afterwards. I might have had an easier time of it
if CNN's block of repeats had started an hour earlier, but I did have
to do my usual afternoon transcription assignment.
Meantime, Mom had arrived. She and my sister busied themselves
in the kitchen, preparing two kinds of lasagna. Finally, I was done,
and Dad (an osteopath and the primary doctor for a drug treatment facility)
had returned, so everyone sat down to a late lunch/early dinner: a traditional
lasagna and a white lasagna, along with a fresh salad.
Then came the present opening. We gathered in the living
room and parceled out the gifts, then went around the room in a circle,
each person opening one gift at a time. This way everyone gets to see
their gift being opened and see the reaction. We had all pared down
on our gift giving a little, which meant there were fewer presents to
open but just as much good spirit. The running joke this year was that,
whenever opened something that resembled a book, or resembled a present
that someone else had already received (such as the specialty foods
Mom had bought for everyone), the gift opener joked that they hoped
it was a sled or a skateboard.
This would have been even funnier if someone HAD received
a sled or a skateboard!
Dad likes to give people one large gift, while my mom
likes to parcel her budget out over many small gifts. So my Dad's primary
gift to me was a JVC HD Everio GZ-HM200 video camera. This way we can
videotape important baby milestones and share them with the whole family.
While the camera wasn't the brand we might have requested if he'd asked
us, after my initial experiments with it, I'm pretty happy.
The one-touch upload to YouTube boasted about in the instruction
manual doesn't seem to work, but it's a relatively matter for me to
convert the .MTS files into .MPEG files using the excellent shareware
program Xilisoft,
which I'd purchased about a month ago in order to convert my
video of the theremin player at Philcon. I have the Xilisoft Video
Converter Standard, which is one of the more reasonably priced options.
Of course, I couldn't use the video camera that day, since
I had to charge the battery first. I'll share some video tomorrow.
For The Gryphon, Dad got a Garmin GPS device, a nod to
the fact that The Gryphon typically serves as my navigator when I'm
driving.
Mom got me a beautiful little yellow baby sweater, knitted
by her friend, The Pastor (started before she knew which gender we were
expecting). In addition, Mom gave me a beautiful bracelet and a clutch,
both from an organization that supports third-world artists. I'm told
that The Pastor is working on a sweater for me, which will hopefully
fit me by next winter, since it is based on my pre-pregnancy measurements.
Mom gave The Gryphon some nice kitchen items, along with
a cook book and a couple other small items. He's the one who truly loves
to cook, while I just do it out of necessity. She also gave us some
specialty food items, which we're looking forward to sampling.
My sister and her husband gave everyone books. For me,
they gave me the book Baby
Bargains, which I was very excited to receive, since it had
been recommended by some friends. For The Gryphon, they got him one
of the Top Chef cookbooks, an excellent choice. Can't wait for
him to make me some of those recipes!
My brother and his family had sent us each a special package
of coffee from Green Mountain Coffee in Vermont. They were thoughtful
about their choices and sent a selection of decaffeinated coffees for
The Gryphon and I (since I can't drink a lot of caffeine during my pregnancy).
After we opened the gifts, we had some pie: apple or pecan.
Then, of course, people tried out their gifts, like board games or electronic
devices. I flipped happily through my Baby Bargains book.
We sat down to watch Night at the Museum 2: Night at
the Smithsonian. My 7 p.m. transcription assignment was a repeat,
and I fully expected the entire night to unfold similarly. However,
when I checked at 8:30 on my usual FOX show, the night editor asked
me if I could help transcribe some breaking news. Apparently, a young
Nigerian man had attempted
to set off a bomb on a transatlantic flight landing in Detroit.
There was wall-to-wall breaking news the rest of the night, so I ended
up doing as much work as I normally would have.
Merry Christmas.
