The 2013 Christmas Recap, Part I

Well. That was really fun.

First off -- as I always do in these posts -- I will say that I am back home in Kansas, safe and sound. I pulled Daisy's car into the driveway this morning at a little after 7, both of us exhausted and sleepy from not only a long drive down here in the overnight hours, but a long Christmas week in general during which both of us were running around constantly trying to get everything done, help the parents, and play with the kids (Daisy's sisters were in town; one sister has been there for a few weeks, and the other came in yesterday before we left). I put stuff away this morning, Daisy showered, and both of us went to bed -- where we slept until 2PM, got up, had "breakfast," and then she ventured back north to Omaha, as she goes back to work this evening.

Whew. It was indeed a long trip; it felt much longer than it was, especially last night's drive. By the time I was nearing Newton this morning I was desperately just wanting to get here, put gas in Daisy's car, and get us in the house so we could sleep. As I've mentioned before, regardless of whether we're coming or going, I drive 2/3 of the trip now since Daisy drives down here and back all by herself and because she's usually really tired. Daisy's car is fine to drive; I've said in the past that I've never driven a car that handles more smoothly and easily than Daisy's Hyundai, and over the course of the past year and a half now, I've gotten used to its nuances and quirks, as it's a hell of a lot different than driving the high-horsepower smokewagon that is my Monte Carlo. But, we made it safely -- the house is fine, the cats are fine, and everything was put away and stocked up in the fridge and cabinets (I'm also doing multiple loads of laundry from the trip now, as I write this). So let's get to it.

Daisy arrived here on Monday evening around 6 or so. This was expected (as I covered here in my last post); she'd not been feeling well that morning and had taken some DayQuil before she took a few hours' nap. I'd used the day beforehand to get everything I needed to do done before leaving town. Rent was paid, Discover card bill was paid, leftover pizza (and anything else that would go bad while I was gone) was frozen, cats were fed and were given new food/water/litter, and the house was locked up tight as a drum with my car in the garage.

As a sidenote, the box from my parents arrived on Monday evening; in it was the normal assortment of candies, coffees, and snacks, and two $50 Visa gift cards (which is pretty standard for my parents to do for me at Christmas), even though I told them I didn't need anything. It was still very nice of them. I took the gift cards with me to Omaha, but didn't end up using either one of them while I was there -- I figured if I needed to get anything, my completely-paid-off Discover card would suffice, as I know that works perfectly fine while I'm traveling. I unpacked what needed to be unpacked from the box (perishable stuff that would go bad if left out for four days) and left the rest of it in the spare room where the cats couldn't get to it while we were away.

Daisy and I left Newton a little after 8PM -- I let her rest, stretch her legs, and I finished up the last of my important stuff while she did. We got gas and headed north, stopping in Concordia and in York where we always do. It was a quiet drive -- Daisy was so tired that about 1/3 of the way through it, she fell asleep, as she needed it. I'm so used to making that long drive at this point that it didn't faze me. Much of the drive is autopilot more than anything else; set the cruise control and keep the car on a straight line, and it does everything itself. Adjust your speed to match the speed limits in different areas, and you're good. I especially like making that trip at night, as there's no traffic, very few (if any) cops on the road, and it's peaceful. There was a bit more traffic than usual as it was the night before Christmas Eve, but once you get past a certain point on the highway north and away from the cities and towns, it's all quiet, dark, and nothing but road and fields.

I do want to add here that in the interim between last weekend's snowstorm and the drive up there on Monday night, the road crews had cleaned off the highways remarkably well. There were still some patchy places of snowpack and ice that remained because it was so bitterly cold, and the streets in Newton (including my neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods) hadn't had anything done to them -- but neither of us had any trouble making the trip, and once we were out of the area where it had snowed, there was nothing on the ground or roads anywhere.

We stopped at the York Walmart, as we always do, getting there shortly before midnight. I got cigarettes (as I needed them) and some lip balm and L-Lysine, as I was beginning to feel a blister pop up on my lip, and paid for it with my Discover card as I'd planned. From that point (the 2/3-of-the-way-there point), she took over, having snoozed in the car beforehand to recoup some of her lost energy. I'd like to note that even when she's driving, I don't (and won't) sleep during the trip since we do it in the night. I know how quickly Daisy can fall asleep when she's tired, and it is literally within seconds. We'll be having a conversation one minute and the next she'll be snoring. It's not that I don't trust her to stay awake, because I do and because I know she can, but it always helps to have conversation and to keep said conversation going when we're both in the car and both tired.

We arrived in Omaha around 2AM, give or take. We put away our stuff, and I smoked two cigarettes in the freezing cold on the parents' back deck (which is where I smoke when I visit there; I even bring my own ashtray) before we went to bed.

I should mention again that Daisy's sister, her husband, and their two boys were in town for the holidays as well. Her oldest boy is five; the other is eight or nine months old and has just recently started crawling. They all stay in the spare room in the parents' house when they're there, which is about the same size as Daisy's bedroom (though remarkably less cluttered). That meant that aside from myself, there were at least seven other people occupying the house at all times when I was there.

So, when I woke up on Tuesday morning (Christmas Eve) at around, oh, 10 or so to find the house quiet, empty, and seemingly deserted by everyone but myself, it was -- needless to say -- somewhat surreal.

I went downstairs and looked around. Nobody was there. All of the cars were in the driveway and garage, coffee was fresh and hot in the pot, but nobody was around. Hm. It was as if I'd awakened in the Home Alone universe, and I was Kevin McAllister. I've been alone in Daisy's home before, of course -- over the summer when I was there, Daisy's parents were traveling to visit family, and Daisy had to work some nights -- so it's not like it was a new experience to me. It was just new in the sense that there were more people there over the holidays than there had been in the house at any given time during my visits, and now they'd seemingly vanished.

I could (slightly) hear people moving around upstairs, of course, though I didn't know where any of them were. The parents' house is large and well-insulated, meaning that noise doesn't travel or carry that much compared to my place, where I can hear someone down the street slamming their car door or yelling at their kid(s). I got a cup of coffee and settled down in the big round chair in the piano room, waiting for anyone upstairs to come down. Eventually, of course, they did -- they were all (or most of them, anyway) in mama's sewing room...where Daisy was making me a Marvel comics-themed Christmas stocking.

That evening, as planned, I joined the family for the Christmas Eve service at the local church. Those of you who know me well know that I always fear I shall burst into flames upon entering a church; I am, and have been, a hardened, science-and-reason atheist for the vast majority of my life, but this is something that meant a lot to Daisy and her family -- so even though I wasn't required to go or specifically asked to go, it was something I wanted to do just so that I could be part of the family bonding experience. Again, I love Daisy and her family. I wanted to take part in their traditions, especially the traditions that mean a lot to them even though they don't necessarily reflect my own religious views. I didn't even think about not going, though I was given an out if I chose not to. Family sticks together; family is extremely important. Out here, 1,000 miles from home, my cats and Daisy's family are all I have.

The service was really nice, though it was a lot shorter than I expected it to be -- maybe an hour at most. We went to the early one, though there were at least two more of them scheduled that day (I believe there was a 7PM service as well as a midnight service, though I could be mistaken).

Daisy and I had to go out and do some last-minute grocery shopping on Christmas Eve -- which, of course, is always a bad idea anyhow on the day before a holiday -- because her family has a sort of set tradition on the holidays, especially Christmas and New Year's: the night before the holiday at hand is sort of a "junk food" night, where our dinner consists of lots of goodies -- cheese and crackers, fruit and vegetables/dip, bread and fondue, pie(s), and lots of other stuff like that. This year we had the added bonus of some unique items, such as mama making baked feta and spinach rolls inside phyllo dough, jalapeno poppers, beef taquitos, etc. It was all very good; Daisy, of course, makes vegan versions of what she can and eats that stuff instead. I tend to eat half-and-half of both, especially since for some things (depending on what it is, of course) Daisy's versions are really, really good. Daisy's pies and desserts are always top-notch, and she made vegan phyllo-and-feta cups (with almonds acting as the "cheese") which were wonderful as well. This same sort of oh-so-delightful fare is offered up on New Year's Eve as well, as I was able to experience it last year. The only sad part of it was that Daisy's father wasn't feeling well and went to bed quite early, even before most of us got anything to eat.

I also got to finally meet Daisy's brother-in-law, who (aside from being a nerdy guy just like me) is going to be the one officiating our wedding in a few months. He's a pretty nice guy, though with everyone running around and with all of us taking care of everything we could, sit-down time with him to discuss nerdy things and/or really get to know one another pretty well was at a premium -- especially with both of the kids there needing constant attention. I was able to talk to him for a bit on Christmas night and more last night, but both times tended to be a bit fleeting. While I do adore everyone in Daisy's family, a lot of the social time with them tends to be overshadowed (or at times, overwhelmed) with or by the kids who will, in a few months, officially be my nieces and nephews. This time, with the new baby who requires constant care and monitoring lest he get into anything now that he's crawling about the house, and with the five-year-old who is a great kid, but is really hyper and rambunctious a lot of the time, there was even less time for that -- and lesser still once Daisy's other sister and her family arrived yesterday...but I'm getting ahead of myself.



Christmas Eve, overall, was really good, and the night ended peacefully. Daisy and I stayed up for a bit after everyone went to bed, but not too long as we knew that the five-year-old nephew would wake up bright and early, excited like crazy to open presents in the morning. I ended up going to bed before Daisy did, as she was in the sewing room for several hours after everyone went to bed so that she could finish wrapping Christmas presents and stuffing stockings for everyone. Because Dad was sick, Daisy wrapped his presents for mama for him, and she still had to wrap most of the stuff for me as well. Even though she was really tired, she did an admirable job. I took a shower and went to bed, and she joined me an hour or two later.

On Christmas morning, I woke up very early -- unnaturally early for me, to be honest with you. Usually I can't sleep on Christmas Eve, but this year I didn't have a problem. I just woke up really early. I put on my watch in the dark (Daisy refuses to have a clock in her room) and hit the light button. It was barely after 6AM, but I was wide awake. Daisy's bed also makes my back ache like crazy, so when my back wakes me up, the only thing that will make it feel better is getting up and moving about. Still, I was awake, and getting dressed in my pajama pants and a Ramones t-shirt, I went downstairs very quietly. I knew it wouldn't be long before everyone else got up and came downstairs anyhow, and Christmas morning would begin.

I didn't even bother going to the living room, though glancing into it I could see that Daisy had brought all of the wrapped gifts downstairs and had placed them under the tree before she came to bed, so that the "Santa" mythology would remain intact for the kid. I didn't pay attention to anything else, though I found that I was not the first one who had been awake -- magically, there was coffee ready to be made in the coffee pot, a new loaf of bread was stirring and baking in the bread machine, and there were two (cold) sticks of butter left on the counter to warm up and soften. This meant mama had been downstairs at some point shortly before me, and I'd assumed she'd gone back to bed. I made the coffee and turned on my laptop, and sent my parents a "Merry Christmas" email while I checked Facebook and the like.

Around 7:10 or so, after drinking a few cups of coffee and making a few trips outside to smoke in the cold on the porch, Daisy came downstairs in her nightgown, bleary-eyed, with her hair up, to find me sitting at the table and relaxing with a hot cup of coffee ready to take on the world.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Eh, about an hour or so. Made coffee, did computer stuff, went out to smoke, etc. Mom was up before me, apparently; the coffee was set and the butter was on the counter when I came down."

About half an hour later, as Daisy woke up a bit more and it began to get lighter outside, everyone began coming downstairs one-by-one, and we had breakfast. It was at that time that Christmas officially began.

How did it go? What did everyone (including myself) get? Well, that's what I'll cover in Part II of this series.