We have been Christmased. :)

Young Indiana in fact had no idea today was Christmas. He didn’t wake up until 6:50, which is the latest he’s slept in over a week. We turned the tree lights on and sent him into the living room and he gasped, “PRESENTS?!?”–

–and then immediately said “I can’t wait for my Bumblebee Optimus!” which is the one toy he has been absolutely on message about for months. And, terrible parents that we are, we’d buried it at the back so it would be the very last gift he found. :) Good thing, too, because it was, as predicted, all over when he got it, so it was just as well we’d unloaded everything else first.

I now have so much TV on DVD to watch that I’m going to have to spend a month doing nothing else. :) I got piles (literally) of new books, too, as did Ted, who also cleaned up in the Kitchen Gadgets department. And speaking of the kitchen, gawd. The hours between opening gifts and going to Mom & Dad’s for Dinner And Gifts were spent entirely in the kitchen, making apple pie, mushroom & root vegetable pie with rosemary-infused biscuit topping (SO. YUMMY!), and green bean casserole. And cleaning. And…putting name tags on the last gifts, and…other important things. Anyway, it was non-stop, but ultimately satisfactory, as we got everything done and arrived at Mom & Dad’s in a comparatively timely manner and bearing a lot of yummy food.

Many of our usual suspects–other ex-pats who have become part of our extended family–were actually back in the States/Canada this year, so it was a smaller party than usual. It was also *very* pleasant, as Young Indiana is a bit less inclined to go utterly mental when presented with his older cousins, who were dialled up to 9 or so on the charm scale themselves today. So there was a total gift bonanza there, too, and loads of truly excellent food–Mom did a pork roast and Deirdre brought really nice stuffing–and the bulk of the afternoon was spent playing a game of…something like Humdinger, but that’s not it. A game where you have to hum, not la-la-la or doot-dee-doo, the song on the card, and everybody else tries to guess it.

This resulted in a fair amount of hilarity, as it turns out it’s pretty damn hard to just hum a lot of songs recogniseably, even if you’re a great deal better at hearing/remembering lyrics than I am. (My sister’s rendition of Highway To Hell, for example, was cut rather short by her only knowing those 3 words of the song (which she hummed with great vigor, but… :)), although that wasn’t as bad as a friend of hers who, at a different game of this, got the song Fame and that was the only word she knew from it, so she just kept humming that one high pitched FAME! *giggles*) It culminated, perhaps, in Deirdre and another friend breaking out into the Greatest Love Of All lyrics. They belted out “They can’t take away my DIGNIIIITEEEEE,” upon which Deirdre’s eldest, with flawless deadpan delivery, said, “You’re wrong, Mom. They can take it away.” :) :) :)

We did a family rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight that was rather good, if I do say so myself, and very enthusiastically tackled We Will Rock You, although it turned out we knew the first verse, had an idea of the second verse, and…really didn’t know the third one past “Buddy you’re an old man poor man” mumblemumblebumblemumble, but I rallied at the last line with “mumblemumble just get to the chorus!”, which was enough to let us finish out in style. :)

We had a great time. :) And now we are at home again, looking at the devastation of the living room, and…I’m totally not cleaning up tonight. G’night, world. :)

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