happy christmas, gentle reader! to those of you who actually got snow this year: sod off. i hope your stockings were full of coal, and you all had an allergic reaction to your plum pudding. (honestly, we live in upstate new york. this business of not having snow at the end of december is ridiculous. i remember having inches, back in the day.)
daniel got a snazzy new camera under the tree this year, and put it to use immediately. hence:
christmas 2006
(completely irrelevant side note: i really, really miss the days of <center> tags. there is no good alternative for centering block-level elements. drives me nuts. i know, i know, separate style from structure, yadda, yadda.)
you may notice the presence of my little sister-in-law, marie. christian was having bloodwork and a ct scan done that morning, so he and barb were at the hospital. on christmas. at the hospital. *cough* their christmas morning took place (with the addition of katia!) the previous evening, after venison steaks and roasted vegetables. even so, we had a lovely time with them, and with my family. marie got some fantastic fairy stuff, which she brought along with her christmas morning to keep herself occupied. and it turned out the tiredness and confusion christian had been experiencing were results of steroid withdrawal, not elevated fluid levels or a brain tumor, so life was pretty good all around. benjamin and i got two christmas dinners out of the deal, so i really have no call to whine.
since then, i've done an all-night warlords marathon with benjamin and the brothers, followed by the post-christmas mall survey with mum. got a great pair of leather gloves, plus various items from the bath & body sale. o, and we went skating with marie, which was nearly as much fun as i remember. i do miss it. i think one of my new year's resolutions will be to get a rink pass somewhere in rochester and learn to run. (after having converted to hockey skates over ten years ago, i still can't run in a straight line. only around corners.)
in other news, i'm at it again: