Three Days till Christmas/Weekend Re-Cap

and i'm so excited i can't even stand it!

It was cold and snowy all Friday night so we hunkered down with christmas cookies and a frozen lasagna and watched the Closer and my new prime-time soap obsession, Footballer's Wives .

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Saturday was a day of "supposed to's". First, i was supposed to volunteer with my company's GLBT group to pack "blizzard boxes" at The Center for local AIDS/HIV+, homebound people, but was guilted into backing out so i could take my mom to finish her Christmas shopping. When i called her in the morning she bailed out on account of the snow & ice. So, i called Squirt and hit the mall with her; hjinx ensued (all i can say is that i wish i had an uncle with whom i could belt out Mariah's All i Want For Christmas, lemme tellya). we shopped, we lunched, we laughed. i love that kid and it's great to see her growing up into such a cute young woman (she's 12 going on 30 and has finally discovered make-up and perfume). After i dropped her off, i went home and watched Christmas Eve on Sesame Street which was my favorite Christmas special when i was a kid. it still made me all weepy (especially the Gift of the Magi scene with Ernie and Bert). Stephen rolled his eyes, patted my hand and retired to the kitchen to make a crumb cake to bring to my friend Paul's house later that evening. There, we hung out, caught up (his boyfriend had been planning a trip to Haiti for Halloween and we'd not seen him since) and ate the worst pizza i've ever had (i've still got agita), and played Wii (Brain Age Academy and Mario Party 8). a good time was had by all, much laughing and fun.

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Sunday was spent, largely, in my pajamas. i spend 90% of the day wrapping the last of my gifts and watching Buffy (Stephen: "Screw Twilight. Buffy and Angel are the greatest vampire love story, ever") while Stephen did...something (i've honestly got no idea, that's how absorbed i was in wrapping). later on we went food shopping, which we'd not done in about 3 weeks and i subtly engineered giving him another* one of his gifts** a few days early. afterward, we got back into our pj's, he wrapped his gifts (cleverly concealed in Amazon.com boxes) and we continued our Buffy-thon; all in the warm glow of the Christmas tree.

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now it's pretty early here, there's not alot of people about; it's colder than GW's heart outside, but wonderfully crisp and bright. i love this time of year!

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* i had ordered him a fresh sourdough sread "starter" from King Arthur's Flour a few weeks ago. i called their Customer Service center and requested the delivery be delayed so that the starter would arrive this week and the rep said "no problem". sadly the damn thing arrived 2 days after i ordred it, so he's been making sourdough bread for the last 2 weeks.

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**he's been talking about making Panettone for years but could never find the "pans" (oversized cupcake wrappers). i saw them on the King Arthur's website, and picked them up for him a few weeks ago. since he's off all week he figured it'd be a good opportunity to try out his recipe, even though he didn't have the pans. while shopping, he put some of the ingredients we didn't already have (candied citrus peel, golden raisins) in the cart and then took them out again. i put them back and gave him the pans when we got home.