Another Christmas behind us

Christmas 2006 wasn't bad. Did all my shopping online. Every bit of it. Didn't go to one store.

Got a new iPod to replace/upgrade my one that's only a year old. Between all the hard work Gil did (thank you, Sweetie!) and my own 2,000+ songs, there are a total of 5,300 songs on it, plus videos and I still have to load my 1600 photos and my Cesar Millan podcasts.

Abby gave the dogs a whole bag of toys and treats, including this indestructible ball, which unfortunately caused them to fight probably for the first time ever -- I mean the most aggressive I've ever seen them towards each other. And Hector even fought back. I asserted my pack leader-ness, along with my calm, assertiveness, and won that battle. Took the ball away temporarily. They'll get it back tomorrow. Here is a picture of the two idiots with a toy when they were puppies:

Yesterday found me going to help out with Mom, and that was the best part of Christmas 2006 by far. Mom has these little ceramic tabletop Christmas trees. You plug them in, and they light up. Mom's 86, and she can't get down on the floor to plug the suckers, in, so of course I did it for her. She had been storing the little trees in plastic grocery bags. While I was on the floor crawling around under the dusty veranda in the living room, trying to reach the wall socket, Mom stuffed the plastic grocery bags in a drawer inside the veranda. When she opened the drawer, it was stuffed to the brim with old black & white photographs, classic Polaroids that were peeling off their heavy cardboard backers and assorted other photographic treasures. After I was done crawling and plugging, I opened the drawer back up again. Astonished, I had stumbled upon 100 photographs I'd never seen in my life. The most important ones being of ME when I was 6 months old (the photos are date-stamped October of the year I was born, and there's a baby -- must be me!). They are all taken in the Chicago suburbs where we lived at the time -- recognizable by me today because we spent all of our vacations there when we were growing up. Peppered in are photos of my brothers, my parents, and the house at Lake Como in Wisconsin. I hollered to Mom, who by then was in the kitchen, "CAN I BORROW THESE?!" She said, "Whaaaa?" I carried the photos into the kitchen. "Can I borrow these? I have this machine Mom, it copies photos. It's called a scanner. I want to scan the photos and then I'll bring them all back to you." "You want to copy them." She said, understanding about the scanner. "Yes." "Yes." she said. Of all the "presents" I could've gotten this weekend for Christmas 2006, this was something I never asked for, never expected, never would have thought to ask for. The best kind of gift.

Bummer though, when I got home, I found out our scanner is broken. I ordered a replacement, but it won't arrive in time to scan the photos and put them on CDs for my two brothers whom I'm getting together with on Wednesday night. We always get together between Christmas and New Year's. Me, my brothers, Mom, and my 6 nieces and nephews. This year, we decided not to exchange gifts for the first time ever. I got Mom something, but that's it. Mom insists on giving everybody money, oh well what can ya do? This CD idea was to be a special gift from me to them, as the archivist, historian and genaeologist of the family. Ah well, I will just have to mail them the CDs later on.

Today was great -- worked on k2k9.com for hours and hours. Got a lot of great stuff written and posted. Then I cleaned the house in preparation for the kids and Ben, the only real little kid in our midst. Watched a couple of episodes of All My Children on DVR, and then everyone arrived and we opened presents and ate finger foods, including shrimp cocktail, cheese & crackers and deviled eggs.

When I was at Mom's yesterday, she told me she was making her famous deviled eggs to bring over to my sister-in-law's for Christmas appetizer. So, today when I was preparing our snacks, I realized I had to carry out this tradition. I know Mom's recipe for her famous deviled egg. In fact, we need to now call them Mook's Famous Deviled Eggs. (Mook is my mother's nickname -- it comes from when she was a little girl and couldn't say "milk". She said "mook" and it stuck -- people address her as Mook to this day.) Here is a picture of Mom, the first person to get a ride in my new car: