You know what’s super fun? When someone asks you what you want for Christmas and you say “please don’t get us anything because we can’t afford to get you anything right now” and they turn around and give you a PS3! Will’s sister Missy rocks!

Will has been begging for “permission” (hello, I am my fiance’s Jiminy Cricket) to buy a PS3 since they were released and each time I have reminded him that he does not actually like top ramen or cup o’ noodles.  Now though, thanks to Missy, we have a PS3.  Will is excited for the gaming.  I am excited for the renting of movies without leaving the house, though that probably won’t happen until Will finishes Metal Gear Solid 4 (a gift from his mother).

And now for the Christmas Wrap Up (ha ha–puns are fun!)

Getting to actually see my Mom on Christmas and hang out with Missy and her husband (Matt) was the best part of being “asked” to drive down to Canyonville for Christmas.  The rest of it was, to be honest, pretty annoying.  Sure I enjoyed playing with Will’s other sister’s kids (three kids all under the age of 5! Yowza!) and I know that Will was glad to have time with his Dad.  But….still.

First we got manipulated into driving down.  Thankfully the roads cleared up completely after Albany, so the drive down wasn’t bad.

When “asked” to come down to them, we said that if we did come down, we’d have to have dinner on Wednesday night (Christmas Eve) because with the weather being horrible we wanted to make it back home no later than early Thursday afternoon, meaning that we’d have to leave Canyonville before noon on Christmas Day.   On the drive down we asked what time to be at Will’s sister’s for dinner and were informed that dinner wouldn’t be until…Thursday afternoon.

When visiting with Will’s Dad on Wednesday night (before spending the night at my Mom’s) Will mentioned to his Dad that we had brought down the deep fryer “just in case” but that we didn’t think we’d need to use it.  Will’s Dad then decided that Will would be deep frying the turkey and wouldn’t let Will talk him out of the idea because smoking it (Will’s sister CJ has a smoker) would have required that the Turkey be put in the smoker some time on Wednesday afternoon (before we got there) and then on Thursday morning when we were on the way to CJ’s from my Mom’s, Will called to suggest roasting the Turkey but it was already too late to put the Turkey in the oven to have it cooked properly for an early dinner, so deep frying was the only way to be able to eat dinner early in the afternoon.

So, because we still wanted to make it home by early evening and wouldn’t have the time to sit around and wait for the oil to cool back down after the deep frying (it takes a few hours), we got Matt and Missy to agree to bring the fryer back up to us.  But once the turkey was cooked and dinner was eaten, Will got “volunteered” to fix his other sister’s computer–which took quite a while and he was not able to actually finish before we finally did end up leaving.

We did not end up leaving Canyonville until almost nine o’clock on Thursday night–but at least we were able to bring the deep fryer back up with us because the oil had enough time to cool down (we ended up leaving the oil there anyway).

I’m not annoyed that we spent the extra time in Canyonville.  I know that Will’s Dad really wanted to have everyone together for the holiday.  I know that Will really wanted to spend some quality time with his Dad.  I am annoyed that nobody was honest about it (and, once again, nobody asked me what I wanted to do).  Instead of simply saying on Monday “can’t you stay later on Thursday so we can spend more time together?” we were manipulated into staying later.  I would have felt a lot better about the extra time we spent if I hadn’t spent almost seven hours of it looking at my watch and thinking “Will said we were going to leave earlier than this and now it’s…” and feeling annoyed.

To make up for it, Will and I spent yesterday hanging out all day in our pajamas and being lazy.  I watched some West Wing in the morning (I am in love with the fact that the PS3 plays regular DVDs as well as Blu-Ray) and then read and crocheted (I’m working on a scarf for Missy) in the afternoon and evening while Will started playing Metal Gear Solid 4.  I turned on our Christmas lights at about 3 in the afternoon and we stayed up until almost 2 in the morning just enjoying hanging out in the peace (as much peace as you can get with the battle scenes blaring from the video game).  We had planned on going out for dinner and maybe seeing a movie to celebrate our anniversary but decided some down time was just what we needed.  We might go out later in the week.  All in all, though, yesterday was a lovely day–made even better when my brother Chris called to wish us a happy holidays.

Today I actually–wait for it–got out of the house for fun reasons because the snow has finally melted! Yay! I went to the library to pick up the copy of the fourth season of Lost that I reserved this summer, then I spent an hour or so wandering around Powell’s and spent entirely too much money on Moleskine day/weekly planners.  It was really awesome to just get out of the house for the purposes of wandering around.  I really missed having fresh air.

Tomorrow I have very important plans to camp out on the couch. And do laundry. But mostly to camp out on the couch.