What did Santa get you?

[V-Adore]

My parents got me a 50 dollar gift certificate to the Cheesecake Factory for my girlfriend and I, socks (I had no idea people actually got socks for christmas, but I will grudgingly admit I need them), some new shirts, and an iPod.

My mother gets me socks every year. To some degree this is a reference to necessity (I lose socks like nobody's business), and to some degree it's just a tradition. At this point, it isn't really Christmas without socks.

Have pity on me.

[acoxcae]

I actually mark my official passage into adulthood by the time when socks went from being the worst Christmas gift ever to tops on my list.  At some point, I was just like, "Damnit, I DO need socks, and I sure as hell won't buy them."

Of course, now that I want them, no one gets them for me.

[misterqueue]

My mother buys me boxers, every single year.  I'm not sure what the Freudian meaning is for "Hey remember to cover up your junk son..." but there you have it.

This is why I never take my girlfriends over to her place at Xmas time...

[Carlos del Vaca]

The best present I received was one o' those single-cup pod-based coffee makers.  It now sits in my office, solving the problem of completely suckful office coffee.

As with many here, I enjoyed giving more than receiving.  Lizzie del Vaca really got Christmas for the first time, and it was great to see her reactions; the big things like the doll house and the box of dress-up clothes were really entertaining.  But she made even small things, like a new hat and gloves, immensely fun.

[jough]

That is an immensely cute photo.  Also, does she have cartoon hands?  Do those gloves really only have three fingers and a thumb?

Also:  "Blog del Vaca" needs another vowel, maybe "Bloga del Vaca."  It's all about the symmetry, man!

[CortJstr]

I got food poisoning this year. I was still able to go to both my parents and the SO's but I couldn't really eat anything.

Other than that I got Civ 4, a couple of shirts, The Art of Discworld, some CDs that I never got around to buying, and some cash to switch to a non-ridiculous cell phone/plan (it took me 4 years to use 1,000 minutes on my last phone, I don't need no 500 minutes a month).

And of course socks and underwear. I don't want to have to buy that crap for myself. It's not manly

[Carlos del Vaca]

That is an immensely cute photo.  Also, does she have cartoon hands?  Do those gloves really only have three fingers and a thumb?

They're way-too-big gloves that she probably has no business wearing for at least two years.  But she wanted to put them on anyway.  I like the look and may adopt it myself.

[V-Adore]

I got food poisoning this year.

Wow! Best gift ever!

(Sorry, dude. I couldn't help it.)

[Lister]

I got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes this year, too.  I had an unreasonable desire for it, and my siblings got it for me!  Yay!  I also got a pretty good digital camera with a friggin' huge memory card, a gig of RAM, my first real cookin' knife (it has scallops and everything), and the Cowboy Bebop session 2 that's apparently been reprinted finally.  Why, yes, I am a giant geek.

My two nieces both got iPod nanos.  When I asked my nephew what he got from Santa, he said "not an iPod."  Poor kid.

[theinevitable]

oh man.
Bozack: I feel you. I'm hoping mine comes the 15th of January, but, who am I kidding... And if I don't get in there, I have to wait until the 31st, and if I don't get in there... forever. It's something like the 1st of april?

Also: Person who is going to Santiago... Santiago is awesome. My mom was born there, my grandparents still live there, and it's gorgeous.

[Choop]

Also: Person who is going to Santiago... Santiago is awesome. My mom was born there, my grandparents still live there, and it's gorgeous.

Well, we're still planning things to do, so if you can think of anything I might be missing, let me know. Where is there to eat on a Sunday?

[side_show]

Did you ever get one of those gifts that just humbled you?  Every year my SO's family showers us with and embarrassment of riches.  None of his family is well off, but many of the gifts are made, or collected over the previous year, and all have a great deal of thought put into them - there are no throw away gifts.  More importantly, they shower use with so much love that it aches and it never fails that I get that twinkly feeling in my nose that tells me I can either break out in the ugly cry-to-joy or distract myself to avoid a scene. 

So we got all these lovely gifts, and just when we're all buried under gifts and wrapping paper, taking in all the wonderful things we've been given, my SO's dad tells us they have another gift for us, but since it couldn't be wrapped we have to come into the kitchen to choose.  There in the kitchen are these two tables in the room.  Turns out the SO's dad went out, collected old oak wood from the bush, and hewed it down into legs, and bottom shelf and base, then ordered in large ceramic tiles for the tops.  He wanted us to choose the top we wanted, since he had made a pair of each.  The grain is so beautiful.  Looking at them you can just instantly tell that they will last for ever.  The fact that he turned old dead trees (the SO's grandmother tells us the wood was laying where he found it for at least 10 years) into something so sturdy, solid and beautiful, and that he presented them to us so humbly and unassumingly, was just one of those moments.  He has the skill, the craftsmanship, to make something that could sell in stores for hundreds of dollars, but he presented them as "just" something he'd made.  It was so sweet and heartbreaking.

[CortJstr]

Cowboy Bebop session 2 that's apparently been reprinted finally.

Wait, what? Is this just disc 2 of the series or is there some whole other Cowboy Bebop thing that I'm unaware of? I had to completely stop visiting anime sites like 2 years ago to stop hemorrhaging money so I've been kind of out of it, news-wise.

[Hobot]

I received hella books, including Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss; Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena by Julia Reed; An Exaltation of Larks (possibly the most stupendous book ever written) by James Lipton; A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 by my favourite author, Simon Winchester; and no fewer than three Russian dictionaries.

My mom found the poster pictured below on eBay.  It's a reproduction 1930 Russian propaganda poster that reads "Religion is Poison."  The grandmother is trying to drag the young girl to church, but the girl, a true daughter of the Revolution, is desperately reaching for the modern building, which says "School."



My wonderful SO got me the "HUUUGS" shirt, which I am modeling below.  I bought him two LPs: Radiohead's "OK Computer" and Boards of Canada's "Twoism."

[wombat]

Hobot and that shirt are cute.