Merry Christmas!

Here it is, my first Christmas as a single person since 1985. It's pretty bare around here. I have a pile of presents for Sarah to take over to her house, but nothing here to open. No lights, no tree, no presents. I do, however, have Christmas music playing on the radio.

Saturday was a good time spent with Sarah. I had stopped by their house earlier in the day to see what kind of pizza she wanted if she was still coming over. She assured me she was, but they still had things to do there. I left and picked up a take-n-bake pizza for each of us at Papa Murphy's. She came over later in the afternoon and we walked across the street to Lowe's and Fred Meyer to do some shopping. We did well, but our main item we wanted at Freddy's was a gingerbread house kit. All sold out. There was a huge pile only a few days earlier. The main reason she was coming over was for the two of us to build a gingerbread house. After going back home, we hopped in the car and went up onto the hill in Kent to another Fred Meyer. Nada. We hit Home Depot while up there too, still picking up a few things for Teresa. On the way home I decided that we may as well try some other avenues for a gingerbread house kit, so we stopped at Top Foods and hit pay dirt. After we grabbed one, we went over to the bulk candy area and added a few more choice decorations to our purchase.

Both of us were starved, so we decided that the first order of business was to eat. We watched the classic Christmas Vacation while we ate. After the movie was done, we started in on the gingerbread house. It's been a few years (maybe three, I'm not sure) since we've put one together, and I had forgotten what a pain in the ass the assembly process is. You have to ensure that your house stays together for the icing/glue to set, then you can do the fun part: The decorating. Note to parents: Assemble your gingerbread house a day or two earlier so it's all ready to go when you want to do the fun part. At any rate, we had a great time, and we got it finished at about 10:30 at night. Teresa was at a friend's house the whole time we were out, and she was going to come by and pick Sarah up on the way home. We got about half of The Polar Express watched before she showed up. It was a good time we had together.

Yesterday was a nice, relaxing day. I got all of my presents wrapped up and piled nicely on my coffee table. At about mid afternoon I decided to get put some clothes on and go out to buy some champagne. (I use Christmas as my once-a-year excuse to drink in the morning.) As I was about to leave, I got a text from Sarah asking me if I wanted bacon for breakfast in the morning. I guess that meant I was officially invited for breakfast at their house. I called them up and we discussed what they needed before I went out to the store. I ended up buying eggs, bacon, and two flavors of Jimmy Dean sausage. I really wanted the "hot" variety, but I settled for two others instead. I also bought two bottles of champagne--One for their house and one to take over to mom's later.

When I stopped by their house to drop the stuff off, I got their furnace going again. There's a persnickety part in it that has been "dying" for a couple years, but never replaced yet. She has determined that it is finally time to get it done and has contacted the furnace people (non emergency regular scheduling). At any rate, I got their house nice and warm for them, then hung out with Sarah and helped her wrap her mom's presents. I also did a little troubleshooting on Teresa's computer. I died during a power spike in a storm, and as I thought, the power supply was toasted. I'll take one over today if I remember to. I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of them around here. Anyway, I also got fed while I was there too, which is always appreciated.

So here it is... Christmas day. Yawn.