Whew! Who knew I could survive without the internet for three whole days? Certainly not me.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and/or whatever holiday-ness you celebrated! Mine actually went okay, although I'm now finding it hard to believe that I still have a week and a half left of break. Oh well, more time for me to waste. XD During the past weekend I mostly did...nothing, weee! Well, it was slightly more than nothing, but still less than usual.

Friday morning I had to go and take a family picture with, you guessed it, the family. That actually went fine, as we went with a photographer from school somewhere around the Malibu Canyon woods and took a crapload of different photos of us looking family-ish. Of course, there was that one spot that was full of dead leaves that were crawling with what looked like dozens and dozens of spiders. Fun! And afterwards I lounged around working on art and sporking until the family wanted to go do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Um, whoops? But oh well, I went and helped my dad pick out a nice sweater for my mom. Not that I'm any better a judge on what's nice clothing than he is, but I think he felt reassured having me saying "YES, I'm sure she'll like that." After shopping, we went and saw "King Kong," which was great fun. Hooray for man-eating slugs devouring people alive! And the part where Kong and Ann Darrow ice-skated together was awful cute, if not physically unbelievable. There was a lot of suspend-your-disbelief throughout, but it was still fun to watch. Kong breaking the T-Rex's jaw: awesome.

Christmas Eve actually ended up being our Christmas Day/Evening/time of opening presents, since the next day our morning was going to be occupied. We went to a Christmas Eve service down at the chapel, wee, although I did get to talk to Liz and Andrew again for the first time in forever. I also saw the Drs. Wilson again, during which Claudette proceeded to give me a lengthy description of how she'd talked with my dad's mother at a conference on how I'm such a wonderful, industrious good Christian person. o_O I dunno about anyone else, but whenever I hear that sort of praise from persons of the older variety, it makes me feel anything but. It's like they tell you all that purposefully to make you aware of all the very "Un-Christian" things you've ever done in your life ever. Dargh! But whatever...it was a fine service, and the kids were adorable, and holy cow standing next to Daniel with his deep baritone is an interesting experience.

Then we had Christmas coke in glass bottles (*everything* tastes better in glass bottles) and opened Christmas presents, yay! So here is this year's haul:

I got...a *lot* of clothes this year. Way more than I was expecting in fact, and I think my mom almost apologized for getting me so many clothes, since they were kind of a minor addition to my (already rather detailed) list. Not that I mind, because hey presents are presents, and since I absolutely despise clothes shopping anyway the fact that I don't have to go buy them myself is always a plus.
- An aquamarine sweater with matching black pinstripe pants. Unfortunately, the pants need to be hemmed at least, although they're a little low otherwise as well. (Wishes that people would stop making *everything* to hang down past your ass)
- A big fluffy white sweater
- Some brown courdoroy pants that I need to make sure actually fit
- A dark red dress shirt
- Some socks and underwear (which I actually needed, so YAY)
- A cute green shirt with some sparklies on it
- An aquamarine bohemian-type skirt with matching shirt and sweater. I actually really like this outfit, which is shocking considering I abhor skirts and never, ever wear them. It's actually even almost (le gasp) FASHIONABLE! *is amazed*
- some pajama bottons from grandma that have froggies on them in honor of Jerry the Frog. :) Yaaay new pajamas...
- A new small purse, which I *really* needed since my old one broke
- A bunch of candy-things in my stocking (some of which is leftover Halloween candy...uhh, huh?)
- A new ornament, also in the stocking
- Disney's Aladdin on DVD
- Disney's Bambi on DVD (herein lies the problem...I already *had* Bambi, and I ended up getting two copies of Aladdin. Go figure! So I need to go back to Suncoast or something and see if I can exchange those two extras for two new copies, since they're still wrapped and everything anyway. Can hopefully get Tarzan or The Lion King in exchange, hmmm...)
- Disney's Cinderella on DVD (can you tell I asked for Disney DVDs this year? ;))
- Daniel got me two DVDs of classic Mickey and Donald cartoons from way back. Fwee!
- some cash, which I later took some of to go and buy queeniechan's 'The Dreaming'. (I couldn't find the complete collection of Jeff Smith's 'Bone', though...)
- this was surprising: my grandpa gave me a biography on Ub Iwerks, which I really appreciated, and I've already finished reading through half of it. Not that I'm surprised he gave me a biography, since he loves those, but at least it was a biography on someone I'm interested in. *loves Disney and animation history* Although the font used in that book is an awfully weird choice...

Huh, I think that's it, actually. Yeah, lots of clothes!

Christmas morning we got up and went to Sierra Madre, where my dad had to preach for the last time. He used a power point presentation and everything. The scary thing is, we've been visiting that church (on occasion) for nearly ten years. It definitely doesn't feel like it's been that long. And throughout all that time, I really haven't gotten to know anyone really well. Probably because over half that church population is nearly three times my age, and those that *are* my age seem to be harboring some deep-seeded snobbery and dislike towards me for reasons I can't begin to comprehend. Whatever. So after church (during which Sunshine had to stay in the car the entire time, poor girl!) we drove out to Bakersfield for the next few days. We had really good Christmas lunch/dinner that was ham and scalloped potatoes and more yumminess! *wishes she had some right now* We did the rest of our open-presents stuff after linner (which I also listed up there) and then had pie. Mmm, apple pie...

After that? It was a lazy blur, pretty much. We did go and see Narnia once again, and I took notes for a puppet show version, which will come whenever I start writing it. :3 My grandpa actually ended up going to it AND liking it, which is shocking considering he never goes to movies with us. It's probably because he's a big fan of C.S. Lewis. Obviously, I enjoyed seeing that movie again as well. Otherwise, we pretty much watched the DVDs we got at home, lay around and did whatever. I ended up doing lots of sporking. My cousin got Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" on DVD, and we watched that, only to discover there were waaay more sex jokes and nudity than any of my younger siblings had first through. Whooops! XD (I laughed my ass off at least...)

Holy cow, I can hardly remember what happened, because hardly anything happened. Haha! But in any case, I'm back home now, and the cats are all doing just fine. Daniel's trying to get through FFX (he's already at Mt. Gaghazet!) and I need to get a few more chore-like things done. It's nice to be home, though!

Wow, I'm so boring this Christmas. XD Hope everyone else had fun!

Drawing: Now that I'm back, it's time to get cracking on coloring those pictures and toning that comic! Lots of work ahead, but now's the time to do it!

Writing: I sporked five different fics or so over the break, from Mary Sues to sucked-into-game self-inserts to godawful high school AUs to crackfics that aren't funny. Will gleefully post them on that community probably next week when I'm sitting at work again for a bunch of midnight shifts.