Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas to All

It is over now. At last. And I'm not sure that it is just because I have so much to do before school starts (and ZOMG AFTER SCHOOL STARTS AHHHHHH) but I'm ready to take the tree down tomorrow. I won't, but I may spend New Year's Eve Day doing so.

Santa visited, with respectable results. Delia got many gifts and very satisfyingly played for a long time with the Playmobil My Takealong Farm that was her main gift from us. I mean Santa. She went to bed with her stuffed tiger and leopard and triceratops toys.

My mom got her about a bazillion gifts, from clothes to toys to little odds and ends. I have always felt a very strong gratitude, like an awe really, that she is so well loved not just by me but by others, friends and family.

I myself scored a few nice things, from a pearly grey fleece zip-up to a stethoscope to some cash and a few gift cards. Also a sudoku and a mah-johngg game for the Palm. J and I set a limit so we wouldn't spend outrageous amounts of money so it worked out well.

I went out ages ago, just after Thanksgiving I would say, and got J a steelhead rod and reel. Her brother was visiting us and we sneaked out (Delia in tow) and got it while J was sleeping in one morning. He's been here again since last Wednesday or so and it's been really hard not to give her the rod early because they went fishing a couple of times. But then there wouldn't have been as much for her to open Christmas morning and I would have felt bad. The wait was worth it, she was very surprised and pleased to have her own rig and she and her brother took it out today and fished again. No luck bringing home a fish but they went and got her a few of the bits and pieces of this and that to put in her tackle box, and sat around tonight tying leaders on these gigantic red hooks -- I've only ever fished for trout so I'm used to little weensy hooks, and these things look like you bring Moby Dick in with 'em by comparison.

I took Little Miss Exhausted out with me to the college bookstore today and got the three reference materials for which I bought my Palm: Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses, and Mosby's Diagnostic and Laboratory Test Reference. Let me just say right here how amazed I am, that in about a half hour's time I used three skinny little cd's to load three whole books worth of information on something that will fit in a cargo pocket. I'm not that easily amazed by technology anymore (such the jaded geek! not!) but it blew my mind that this is possible. The super bonus was that one of the items came with a free prize, a little game called Shuffle. You know, because I don't have enough ways to procrastinate. Anyway this will eliminate the need to carry all those books with me to my clinicals, and find a place to put them, and have to run back and check them, etc. Yay!

Just in case any of you are wondering: didn't hear from my Dad. Other than the Holiday Pic, that is. Which did not contain any personal greetings. To be fair, I didn't call him either. Why, WHY do I feel a pang of guilt about this? Do you think I should call him? GAH!

4 comments:

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

I don't think I know the back story on you and your dad, but I'm usually of the belief that people should always try to patch things up sooner than later, because sometimes too late comes too soon.

Impetua said...

Oh, we have a looooong history of "benign neglect" on his part and seething red-hot anger on mine. His fundamentalist wife doesn't help. There are occasional blog entries about this. I want to reconcile with him but he still treats me like a dog in the pickup truck, just along for the ride while he does more important things.

Elizabeth said...

Ugh, that's a hard one. I know what you mean about the guilt. It really sucks. It still pisses me off that he doesn't have any pictures of your kiddo up on his wall.

yellojkt said...

Sounds like a good Christmas. Have a Happy New Year.