A Festivus for the rest of us

Hello friends and Merry Christmas!

I know, why am I posting in the earliest hours of what we can deem Christmas morning? Well, mostly because I just drank half a gallon of cider and the sugar will have me up for another hour at least. Also, I know you must be dying for a life update from me.

Ok not really, but here I am giving it to you anyway. After all, I'm halfway through my senior year, all but a semester away from graduation. But we're not here to talk about that. At least not yet. I'm working on that. I'm just here to catch you up on how I've been spending my pre-Christmas time.

Truthfully I've done a lot of nothing which, in my opinion, is what break should be about for those of us only home for a week before shipping off to some exotic land to swim twice a day before returning to school earlier than everyone else. Well, my exotic land is only Washington DC this year and, as my education major friends remind me, the swim team will not be the only ones back at school early, but that is neither here nor there.

What is here is Christmas. And before that? Christmas eve. And before that? A festivus for the rest of us of course! For those of you unfamiliar with festivus, I've linked you to the Wikipedia page. But, in short, it is a celebration outside of Christmas Eve and Christmas day celebrated on December 23rd to remember the holiday without the commercialism and craziness. So for my festivus, aside from the aluminum pole, miracles, grievances, and feats of strength, I headed to a local NJ theater for their production of Les Miserables. A few of my friends and I got some yummy Italian dinner first and then met some other friends at the theater. The show was really well done (obviously depressing as the plot is) and we went for drinks and dessert afterwards. It was all in all a great festivus and a good kick off for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve, which I still keep trying to call "today" since it's a weird time of day, I slept late, woke up, hung around, got ready, and headed to 4:00 mass with the family. We then continued our Christmas Eve tradition and went to a movie (nobody is ever there, it's awesome). We saw the new Narnia movie and it was pretty good I'd say. Then we came home for dinner. Not quite all 7 fishes but my dad made chowder and we had muscles and clams too, along with a ton of antipasto and other treats. Then it was time to snuggle up on the couch with warm drinks and a Muppet Christmas Carol. Only the best.

I'm glad I had a snuggly almost-Christmastime. I was starting to miss the magic of the season that I wrote about last year from Europe. I think sometimes without the snow I forget it's winter/Christmastime, so it's nice to be reminded of that with some family time.

So, here's hoping you are finding Christmas as magical and merry as ever. I'm not sure if I'll be updating before the new year (unless I want to brag about cool presents) so if I don't, I'll see you in 2011 (graduation year, YUCK).

Merry Christmas,
Christine

(P.S. I used to write Merry Christine on my cards because it was a reaction...life's tough)