Holiday Update!

Okay so I haven't typed anything jolly good for quite some time now, so I think I'd best do some typing now (while I'm still awake).

I spent a wonderful Christmas at home with my family. They certainly seemed to enjoy their gifts. My little nephew was great to see… he certainly has grown, and is as cute as ever. It felt a bit odd to open gifts on Christmas Eve (always does whenever it happens), but since Santa's coming in the middle of the night was no longer a real factor in the mix, it certainly worked out!

I got nice and spoiled this Christmas: Thanks to everyone for the most excellent gifts and cards! Not only did I hear from a tonne of excellent people this holiday but I got a lot of what I truly wanted this holiday season: time spent with friends! As for material things here's a short list of what I've managed to accumulate: Starbucks gift card (I suppose I'll be heading over there sometime… never been there before), Jimmy Buffett CD (AWESOME songs! Like Cheeseburger in Paradise… such great memories from ICON 2003!), A lifesaver story book (yummy butterscotch lifesavers among others!), spa stuff (for a stressed person! tee-hee-hee! How terribly fun and suitable! I even used the bath salts for the first time this morning… how fun!), That '70s Show Season 1 DVDs (*smiles*… I've been spoiled!), a paper shredder!! (I've been wanting one of these for months! It was such a great surprise!), Trivial Pursuit '90s edition (I gotta play that with people soon!), an awesome handmade necklace! (I adore the magnetic clasp, so cool!), a box of Jelly Belly Jelly beans (my fave flavours are in it!), a 512MB card for my digital camera (awesome to be able to actually take pictures and not worry about lack of space!), a hole punch and promise to take my bottles and cans away to the bottle depot! (such needed items!! 🙂 Gosh how spoiled this all makes me feel!!!), homemade goodies, luggage and so much else besides! then there's the awesome chocolate, toys, edibles, book, cush pillow and so on that I got from my amazing CKI friends from around the States whilst in Indianapolis! I mean wow! So many great gifts! And besides all that I've managed with some of my Christmas money to purchase a few odds and ends as well… and to think my mother asked if I felt like I hadn't gotten as much as my brothers? I mean sheesh! With all the excellent gifts, Christmas parties to attend, grades in classes, travel and whatnot, this month has been fabulous! And spending time with my most excellent friends is more than the cherry on the cake. Material wealth goes only so far (I mean really!), but great company, awesome food and so on is so much more fabulous than all that. I really haven't been THAT good this year. Why all the spoilage of Ali?

I feel so utterly spoiled!!

In other news…

I braved the Boxing Day LINE UPS with my brother. Now I wasn't like my older brother (he's younger than me, but the oldest of the brothers) who went out the night before to ensure being the first in line at Future Shop, I went out with my younger brother to wait outside A&B Sound and was still among the first 30 odd in the store at 7AM (getting up at 4AM is not terribly fun… but not all that unusual given my lifestyle at times). I only purchased a CD (Maybe This Christmas Tree?), which did turn out to be an excellent purchase… while my brothers made out like bandits, getting stellar deals on big ticket items. Later in the day we voyaged to the mall, and then to Walmart where I stocked up on Christmas cards. On a whole it was kind of fun… I'm still among the most frugal my family sees (which is why I do get material things rather than money… I tend not to spend enough of the money on fun stuff for myself… I'm trying to teach myself otherwise on occasion… but whatever).

I will need to go shopping for clothes in any case. After getting rid of (or rather bagging up some of) my clothes that don't particularly suit me or fit me or whatever… (I still need to sort through that stuff… and give it away to friends, family, charity and whatnot) I do have room in my closet for a bit. Primary importance is more pants I would believe given that I did run out of 'em rather quickly and I tend to be rather busy for laundry doing at times. Fancy that! 😉 So I truly do need to go out January (or end of December) shopping with friend(s).

In still more news, I get the impression that all of this spoilage of Ali has gained me some weight. Not necessarily a bad thing however. I need to get some good ol' fashioned housework done this year. It's tradition (Japanese) to clean house etc. around the turn of the year… so hopefully I'll get it much nicer this time around. And maybe even host a gathering sometime. We'll see.

So, I only have tuesday and thursday classes in the coming semester. Which means that I'll have some good quality time to do stuff… when I'm not working that is (or otherwise busy). Hopefully the time I'm not doing homework and whatnot will be enjoyable too! 🙂

Yikes! Time to get some shut eye approaches. Off to la-la land with me!