33 and a Third

What a month! There were times, this month, when the thought of all the things that were happening made me start to hyperventilate. We keep track of everything on our kitchen calendar. We barely had space to squeeze everything in — and we don’t even bother writing down the regularly scheduled things! I had to bring the calendar to school with me in order to arrange a parent-teacher interview with one of the teachers - I could no longer remember which days were free.

Reid, Michael and I went to see the noon showing of Lord of the Rings on December 19th. We took Michael out of school for the day. We lined up at 9:30 am with many of our friends. There’s nothing like a good line party! We had lots of fun chatting with other people we met in line and playing cards (hearts). My only complaint: we didn’t spend enough time in line! As for the movie itself, the casting was incredible, the visuals were amazing, but I was disappointed with the plot. I felt there wasn’t enough character development or background to hold the story together. I’m guessing that someone who hasn’t read the books would find too many plot holes or find parts of the movie confusing. As was the case with Reid, who had only read the first few chapters at that point. Enough about the movie: so very many people enjoyed it. It seems I’m in the minority!

A few weeks before Christmas, we visited my parents and then took them back to Toronto with us. They were leaving on their annual trip to Mexico before Christmas this year, so we had our family Christmas a few weeks early. We had a lovely Christmas dinner at my brother’s place and the kids opened their gifts. My niece and nephew are at that age where it’s easier to give them money or gift certificates. How time flies. I remember when it was so easy to pick out toys for my nephew and clothes for my niece. My niece is driving now. Yikes! She drove my brother, my father and I home from a store and it brought back a lot of memories for me. My brother and father taught me how to drive, too. Was I as unsure of things as she was? Did I ask all those questions, too? Was there a tiny nugget of terror deep inside my brother or father as I drove, too?

As for Christmas itself, it was fairly quiet. Reid’s mother came to stay with us. We had turkey and all its fixin’s on Christmas Eve, and a quiet Christmas day spent watching movies and playing cards. Opening gifts on Christmas morning always amazes me. All that time shopping, wrapping, etc… all over in a few minutes, with what seems like a flurry of wrapping paper drifting down from the ceiling. Most of the gifts for the kids centred on the GameCube they intended to buy. They got three games and a controller. They agreed to buy the GameCube themselves with the proceeds from the Playstation they sold, Christmas money they received and some of their savings. Reid got me a drill. I really wanted one. Honest I did. (Corded, lots of torque, reversible, variable speed. My old one did not have variable speed and it’s been slowly driving me crazy. And my cordless doesn’t have enough torque so it’s often useless.)

As I’m typing this, we’re in the midst of having a LAN party at our house. We cleaned up the basement, moved furniture around, ordered some 8 foot tables and can now accommodate up to 21 people and their computers split between the basement and the top floor of the house. I doubt we’ll have 21 computers here. I expect about 15. We’ve left the main floor alone, planning to use it for socializing. We’re such geeks. But hey, it’s fun. I don’t even play most of the games, but I really enjoy watching everyone.