I suppose it's time for the obligatory Christmas weekend catch-up post.

After my 30-hour awake ordeal, I had hoped I'd get up early Wednesday. No such luck - I was so tired I slept well past noon. Bah. But I got myself up, got everything packed, and headed up to Mom's, only getting sidetracked once while searching for gas off 95 and dealing with rush hour traffic around the DC beltway. Stopped for dinner, made it up to Mom's, and settled in for a nice weekend, although she was fighting off being sick most of the weekend.

Thursday was a big shopping day, and the reason my mother wanted me to come up earlier (as she hates shopping). Wal*Mart, dollar store, lunch at a new diner, stopped by William & Marlene's, then a couple more stores, including Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. We had more to do but were pooped, so we headed home, stopping at Giant on the way for dinner and for me to order a platter for my party Friday night.

Friday we hopped down to Delaware and hit K-Mart and Value City and finished up what we needed (well, I needed a few more things, but Mom was basically set at that point). We stopped at Giant on the way home and got food and the sandwich platter I'd ordered, then it was home so Mom could go bowling and I could to go my Christmas party. I changed, stopped quickly at Walgreen's and Eckerd's and found what I was looking for for Mom, then headed over to suba_al_hadid for the annual Median Christmas party and Margibtinlin board meeting.

As usual, t'was an eventful and highly amusing party (keeping in mind we've all known each other for 20 years, so the history feeds the amusement value). Penni was a wonderful hostess, even going so far as to give us a tour of her messy house (which, to me, was wonderful, since I like living that way and a certain husband of mine is a bit of a neat freak). The other folks there were Steve, Pamela and Bryan, Tommy (who we had to call to remind him since Jason never reads his e-mail), jkusters and thomasm (who were in town visiting his folks), and Lee, who won the evening by granting ten points to Gryffindor and using "dead whore in a dumpster" in a Mad Lib. :D My friends - I think I'll keep 'em.

Saturday Mom was starting to feel a little worse (it went from her throat to her nose into her chest), so I ran out and picked up some groceries and medicine for my grandmother and stopped over her house to visit for a while, which was nice, even if she repeats herself worse than I do. (She even thought to ask about Quincy, but mostly because she thinkss every man wants to put the moves on her.) From there I hopped over to Wal*Mart with a mere half hour before they closed to pick up one last thing for Mom. We had leftovers from my sandwich platter the night before, and then I spent the rest of the night watching A Christmas Story and wrapping presents.

Sunday it was up and out to the Good Sister's for Christmas. We stopped at Wawa on the way for one last gift (a gift card), which I think qualifies as the latest I've ever seen anyone in my family buy a gift (did I mention Mom hates shopping?). Lovely day with the kids (who weren't as rowdy as usual), opening presents, a nice ham dinner, and my nephew got Apples to Apples, so I even got some gaming in. Only down side was that it was raining, but I wouldn't have wanted to drive in snow anyway (and surprisingly Mom let me drive home, as she's starting to not do so well driving at night). I spent the rest of the night packing to head back to Maryland.

Sadly I had to get up way early Monday to pick up our friend Silvia at BWI, which I'd promised weeks ago before knowing that her flight and Q's flight got in 9 hours apart. Ah, well - it all worked out for the best. I picked her up, her bags were delayed, and there was time to have lunch with minotaurs and his sister and mom before he flew back to San Diego. Unfortunately, I'd hoped to be able to squeeze in picking up urban_bohemian as well, but the timing was all off, and he was flying into Reagan, so we just wouldn't have made it. Bah! I'm going to hang out with that man soon, I swear it! :P Then Silvia and I went and saw Aeon Flux, which I really enjoyed, and then we puttered around Arundel Mills Mall for a while (that's where Q and I went to the Medieval Times, and now Silvia and our little gang want to go, too). Finally we headed back to the airport, picked up her luggage, and picked up Q. We stopped at Bob Evans for dinner, and we were home by 11, and I was greeted by my computer, TiVo and a box of stuff I needed, all finally shipped to me by magus_nascitur - yay! Now I can play CoH and WoW! :D

Quincy was back at work today, and I spent a glorious 14 hours in bed. Aaaaaaaaah... :) I'm very glad he's home, as I missed him very much (even when he annoys me). Unfortunately, it seems Santa was a little late stopping off at our house, because even though all of Q's gifts are wrapped and sitting here waiting, mine are still en route (i.e., I don't think Amazon guaranteed delivery by the 25th by the time he got around to placing the order). Otherwise, I made out ok - I got Madagascar from the Good Sister's kids (sorry, minotaurs!), a Piglet pen, a Sleepy keychain, cash money from my pollyanna (my Evil Sister, who at one point informed me she likes Q better than me), and a nice check from Mom (knowing I was unemployed, it was all I asked from her anyway). My pollyanna (Good Sister's husband) liked the CDs I got him, Good Sister liked the Tigger t-shirt and March of the Penguins from Q, and I know what Q got (Evil Sister's husband), but I ain't tellin' until he opens it. :D Q also got the kids, my mom and sisters some souvenirs from his trip to the Philippines in October, and we all commented on how in his very first year in it he ruined the mockery of a sham of a joke of two travesties of a pollyanna. ;)

So that's it. Tomorrow I'll set up my computer and we make our weekly trip to Waldorf, and this week we're heading into Dupont so Q can pick up some things at the HRC store. Things are up in the air for the weekend, but Q said some co-workers are going to a restaurant for the new year so I think we're doing that, plus at some point we need to exchange gifts with our friends down here.