Christmas has come and gone. What did you do for Christmas and what did you get? My break down:

Dec. 24: Teresa and I stayed home and played M&M's Monopoly. We played that for a few hours despite using the "quick" version. We listened to some Christmas music on the radio and watched "Christmas Story" on TV when it came on. The radio here played something I had never heard before: old Christmas broadcasts from some point before TV came around. I listened to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". There was another one on before that but I just caught the end so I missed out on what it was. They even had the old Campbell soup advertisements at the beginning and end.

Dec. 25: Teresa and I opened our gifts from each other and from my parents here. She got me a Gorillapod and a Sudoku electronic game (I've become addicted to those damn puzzles). My parents got me a nice vest, along with an Aebleskiver Pan and some money for Teresa and I. They also gave us some small things like socks, coffee, and some chocolates. Teresa got a nice grey fleece from them. I got Teresa some Burt's Bees Citrus & Ginger Root body wash, a knit blanket and a cloth Swedish calendar. My dad's mom gave me some money and Teresa a Body Shop kit with a handmade scarf. My mom's mom gave me some money and the "Cars" DVD and Teresa some money with "The Little Mermaid" DVD. After opening our gifts and talking to my mom and dad and grandma on the phone, we went over to Teresa's mom and dad's. There I got the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie and a big tub of cashews from Teresa's brother. Teresa's mom and dad got me a 24V Black & Decker drill and a B&D rotary tool. Later in the evening, we went over to one of Teresa's aunt and uncle's place for her full family gathering. There we did a gift exchange. It's similar to the way my mom's family did it (pick numbers, pick a gift and whoever goes after you can steal another person's gift or take one not already picked) but they opened their gifts before anybody else can steal so that everybody knows what they can choose from. I don't really care for it this way but maybe that's because I'm used to everybody keeping their gifts wrapped until the end. I ended up with an outdoorsy picture frame and an omelet maker. Teresa got a fleece blanket and a handpainted snowman wall decoration. All in all it was a pretty good day, got some nice gifts and ate way too much.

Dec. 26: Not Boxing Day like it is in Canada. Most everybody goes back to work and most stores have an "After Christmas Sale" where they clear out all their Christmas stuff with very few sales on anything else in the store. Teresa and I went out to try and find some cheap lights like we did last year but came up empty handed. I was looking for bubble lights in particular since those are my favourites from my parents tree.

Well, that's about it for updates.

So yesterday was the first day of winter, which means it was the shortest day of the year. To celebrate that, it rained yesterday....then froze in the evening....then rained again to melt the frozen stuff. Today it's been raining all day and now it's starting to freeze again. Hours for shortest day of the year here: sunrise: 7:32 AM, sunset: 4:11 PM. That 4 PM sunset sucks monkey balls and I'm still not used to it. It's usually dark by 5.

I finished my Christmas shopping for Teresa today. I don't think I've ever wanted to kill so many people in my life. I think every brainless moron was out and about today.

In other news, this is the coolest faucet you could ever buy for your house.

Teresa and I went to visit her cousin in Houghton/Hancock, MI this weekend. We had a pretty good time. While there, we went to Calumet. It's a neat town but seems like a lot of buildings are empty and everybody is leaving. I happened to come across a book at a bookstore this weekend that showed how much of a bustling place that used to be back in the mining days. Quite a bit different from now. I'd like to spend some time there taking pictures of buildings. Lots of neat old stuff there. While there, we stopped at the St. Paul the Apostle Church. I had stopped there once a couple years ago with a friend but didn't have my camera with so I wanted to go again. We went on a Sunday and found it a bit odd that the front doors were locked just after noon. We ended up getting in a side door meant for the handicapped. Pictures here (along with pictures from last weekend).

Besides that, we just relaxed and tried to watch a couple movies. We rented RV, which I had seen with Cayley and Barb in theatres, along with Ice Age The Meltdown, Nacho Libre and You, Me and Dupree. Teresa has an Apex DVD player that she got from Wal-Mart awhile ago and to my amazement, it wouldn't play the legit movies we rented. It kept skipping and missing parts of the movie. There were no scratches or smudges on the disc so I went and bought a lens cleaner. After that didn't help any, I took the player apart and nothing looked to be wrong but my electronics knowledge is limited. I guess I can just leave it to being cheap junk from Wal-Mart. Here's a lesson people: save up and buy a decent brand instead of crappy electronics. I've noticed that there are fewer and fewer stores stocking good electronics. Keep buying that shit and that's what you'll be left with after all the manufacturers decides there's no market for good equipment. So....after that, I tried hooking my computer up the TV to play the movies. We tried "Ice Age" and it ended up needing to install a player to work. It was Hotllama Media Player which didn't play the movie after being installed so thanks to that company for wasting my time. Luckily it was easy to uninstall. We tried "You, Me and Dupree" and "RV" but found out they wouldn't open at all even with Windows automatic media detector thing (I can't remember what it's called). "Nacho Libre" tried to play with the Interactual Player but gave me a decoder error. I'm probably doing something wrong but I'm not too impressed that these movies wouldn't even play on my computer. I guess my computer just isn't meant to be a multimedia machine.

Anyway, Barb had a little survey thing on her blog so I decided I'll post it here too:

Your Christmas Traditions

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
I like egg nog but I can only drink so much of it even though I drink milk like it's water. Probably because it's so thick. Because of that, I have to prefer hot chocolate.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Always wrapped. What's the sense in giving unwrapped gifts? That's part of the fun.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Always coloured. White is too boring.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
Teresa and I put ours up around Dec. 1 for my parents visit. With my mom and dad, we used to do it a couple weeks before Christmas.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
I would have to say turkey or duck (my grandma from Denmark serves this every year).
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Not really one single memory but I just like getting together with family since that's the one time of the year that just about everybody is around. Sadly, the family gatherings are getting smaller as everybody is doing their own family gatherings.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don't really remember.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yes. My grandma on my dad's side celebrates Christmas on the 24th so I open gifts from that side of the family that day.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Teresa and I put up coloured C9 lights, a gold mini light star, red beaded garland, sparkley Martha Stewart balls and some straw decorations my mom brought us from Jysk. At my parents place, they have bubble lights, some small mini lights, red beaded garland, normal silver tinsel-like garland, misc. ornaments gathered over the years and a nice angel on the top that mom got a few years ago.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
I dislike snow but in a perfect world, I would like it to snow on the 24th and melt on the 26th since I can't really imagine having Christmas without it.
12. Can you ice skate?
Yes but it's been quite awhile since the last time I did.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I don't think I've had a favourite. They've all been great.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Seeing family.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
My dad's mom makes rice pudding with strawberry topping. Every year there's an almond put in the bowl (one without the brown "skin"). Whoever finds it wins a prize (usually chocolates or candy).
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I don't really have one but I like everything that happens on the 24th and 25th.
17. What tops your tree?
See the decoration question above.
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
As Barb said, everybody likes receiving even if they say otherwise but I like both, especially if the gifts I give are what the receiver wanted.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer and I like the version of Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie.
20. Candy Canes?
I don't mind them but I prefer the little ones. The regular ones last too long.

Alrighty. Here's a run-down of how the last 6 days have been:

Thursday: My parents arrived later than expected (around 11). They got a speeding ticket on the way and took a wrong turn somewhere. We unloaded their car and talked for a bit before heading to bed as they had been up since 4 that morning.

Friday: The plan was to get to the HD Powertrain Tour I linked to in the last post but that tour only goes from 9-1 PM, Mon-Fri. We are about 4 hours away from there and by the time we had gotten up, we weren't going to make it. We had breakfast at a local restaurant and hit the road. We stopped in Milwaukee to go to TJ Maxx. We didn't find anything good there so we went for supper at the Rock Bottom Brewery. That was some delicious food and I think my mom ordered the best pizza I had ever tasted. Highly recommended if you ever go to a city with one of those restaurants there. Back in the car and we were at the hotel in Rolling Meadows (Chicago suburb) by about 10:30. We went out to get some groceries for breakfast in the morning and my dad wanted to buy some beer. Turns out Rolling Meadows has an "alcohol curfew" which means you can't buy any alcohol after 11 PM within that suburb. We were in a self-checkout lane and an employee came over to tell us this and we thought he was joking. Why this is, I don't know but it seemed pretty stupid to me.

Saturday: We got to the train station fairly early and found that the train that was to pass by to pick us up was full. The next one wouldn't be by for another hour and there were no guarantees that it wouldn't be full either. So my dad and I decide that it's time for a roadtrip. We hit up a Best Buy and bought a DeLorme Earthmate GPS unit. It plugs into your laptop computer and gives you turn-by-turn directions to wherever you may want to go in North America. After about 30 minutes of trying to install it (3 CD's worth and the first install didn't work), we were on our way to downtown Chicago. I really thought it was going to be a nightmare but with the GPS, it went very smoothly. We stopped at Ed Debevic's for lunch. My mom, Teresa and I caught the end of the waiters dancing on the bar but they didn't do it again during the time we were there. My dad was out parking the car and missed out. After that, we trecked out to Navy Pier. They had a stained glass display on with hundred year old pieces and some newer stuff. It was neat to see but not really all that interesting to me and my mom but Teresa and my dad held up the show looking at it all. After going out to the tip of the pier and nearly getting blown away, we went and walked through the Navy Pier Winterfest. They had lots of kids activities as well as trees and santas displayed from different countries. After touring through that, we walked back downtown. We didn't have time to see the Sears Tower or the display at Marshall Field's/Macy's but we tried to find it and it turns out we were only about 2 blocks away from it when we turned around and went back to the car. We got back in the car and headed back to the hotel for a quick snack before going to the concert. As it was last year, it was very good. The first half of the concert was the same (a story along with music) but the second half was different. My mom was very happy with it and my dad seemed to like it as well.

Sunday: We slept in late and were up at 10 (checkout was at 11) so we ate quickly and packed up the car. Just outside of Chicago is Prime Outlets. We spent most of the day there. I bought some leather cleaner/protector for my jacket and Teresa bought a couple of shirts. My parents bought a lot more stuff but I can't even tell you what they got. After that, we headed into Milwaukee and stopped at Olive Garden for supper. My parents had never been there before and they seemed to enjoy their meal. As usual when I eat there, I ate way too much and almost needed to be wheeled out to the car (I'm sure this is why all their seats have casters on them). We stopped in at another Best Buy to see if they had the Chill Pads (pad with fans in it for laptops to sit on) on sale still that I saw in the flier. Turns out the flier was only good until Saturday but I got to play with their selection of DSLR cameras. I really like the Nikon D40. It's smaller than the Canons and has a bigger LCD. It's also cheaper so if anybody wants to buy me a swell Christmas gift, there you go. We got in a bit late but stayed up and had a few drinks (mint Bailey's is very good BTW).

Monday: We spent most of the day shopping locally and also found that Wal-Mart's wrath was felt by another local business. I was trying to get some pictures made from my memory stick from my camera. Wal-Mart's shitty machine wouldn't work and I didn't really want to give them my business anyway so we tried to find somewhere else to do it. Shopko had a bit of a gong show in their photography department and K-Mart didn't do 8x10's and their regular photo service was 3 days (I wanted to send some pictures back with my parents). We went to the one photo shop I know of in town and they had a notice up that they no longer sell equipment or film, nor do they develop photos. They only do portraits. I guess I'm going to have to buy a scanner and start using my film cameras again. Anyway, after wasting a couple hours doing that, we went out to a Scandinavian store in Norway that my parents really liked. We went to a fudge/candy store in the strip mall here and Teresa and my dad bought 3 pounds of fudge between them. We also ate our fair share of samples. We got some groceries that my mom couldn't get at home and hit up the liquor store where they ended up buying $100 worth of beer to take back with them ($100 may not sound like much but when 30 cans only costs $14, it's a lot). We took Pizza Hut pizza back to our apartment and spent the night there. My mom said Pizza Hut in the US is better than in Canada but I haven't eaten at a Canadian Pizza Hut in so long that I can't say for sure whether she's right.

Tuesday: We were up at 5. Today my parents had to go back. I wish they could've stayed longer. They've only been gone a few hours and I already miss them a lot. They said they're try and come back at Easter so hopefully that works out.

There's my update. I haven't uploaded the pictures my dad and I took yet so I don't have a link for that.

Depending which way they're coming, my parents should be in Brandon, MB or just crossing through the Canada/US border into North Dakota right about now. They're coming to visit and are staying until Tuesday or so. Tomorrow, we're heading to Chicago. Mostly to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra on Saturday. On the way there, I'd like to stop in Milwaukee to check out the Harley Davidson powertrain tour. We'll see if everybody else is up for that though. While in Chicago, I'd like to take my parents to Ed Debevic's restaurant. And since my mom has never been to Chicago, I'd like to take her up into the Sears Tower, out to Navy Pier and to the Christmas window display at Marshall Field's (which I've come to find has been bought out by Macy's so hopefully they're still doing it). I'm not sure what else we'll be doing while they're here but it'll be nice to see them again and I'll update this next week.