December 28, 2003 - 5:36 PM

Final Score: Me-3, Christmas-0

I'll be returning to the west coast tomorrow. Flight leaves BWI at 7:30 AM, which means ungodly wake up times for my parents and my sister (she leaves at 8:30). So far, I'm not sure what my New Year's Plans are. I'll probably head over to Tony's for drinking and games and traditional korean New Year's soup, but there's the possibility that I'll go out with my cousins Carol and Roz to get blitzed on the town. And I still need to convince Nick that he wants to party with at least one of these two groups. Anyone else out there have viable alternatives?

Surprisingly, I really didn't fatten up on all the homecooking here. Don't get me wrong, we had splendid meals (some prepared by mom, some by Phil and Soph [Phil studied Hotel/Restaurant Management at Cornell and learned about the nuances of foods and how to cook there as well as at various restaurants in Boston; Soph picked up stuff over time from our mom and from friends and cookbooks and cooking shows]), I just woke up too late for breakfast, and was thus kept to only two meals a day.

As we've grown older, our Christmas's have become less of an "affair" and more of a relaxation period. I guess it's kinda difficult to go all out with everyone living so far from home. We didn't even listen to the John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together album this year, nor did we hang stockings by the chimney. And the pile of gifts around the tree in the living room keeps dwindling in size every year. Mostly my fault, I guess, since I didn't buy much for the family. Being poor is tough.

The ever-present tang of paucity was sweetened, however, by the gifts that I received, including several CDs, the West Wing Season 1 DVD set, and the Ben Stiller show DVD set. Yes, in case you can't tell, I'm a taker, not a giver. Gimme gimme gimme.

I got my fill of religion on Christmas day, but just to make sure it stuck, we went to Church again today. It wasn't so bad. Our family got picked to carry up the offertory gifts, presumably because we were all dressed nicely in our Christmas gifts (sweaters, shirts, and other accessories predominantly from J Crew). At the end of Mass, Phil ran into the parents of one of his school mates, while the rest of us chatted with our fourth grade teacher Mrs. Hughes.

Not much in the way of poignant ruminations on the meaning of Christmas from me. I've not been struck by that bug...maybe something will come later. Happy holidays, I guess. My family rocks.

Now Listening To : The Sound of Music (the movie) in the living room.
Random Thought : You would not beLIEVE how much liquor my parents have, and they don't even drink any of it. Phil and I cured that ailment.

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