Monday, December 29, 2008

happy holidays

I spent Christmas with the Oceanside family, and I just got back on Saturday afternoon. Here are the holiday highlights:

I finally got around to Christmas shopping early last week. I went to Fashion Island last Sunday, in search of wine charms. Instead, I got distracted by the bakeware at Macy's, cookbooks at Barnes and Noble, and the sale at Bath and Body Works. Clearly, I cannot be trusted to shop for other people. I left Fashion Island without the wine charms and with two scented candles...for myself. So anyway, I was browsing the holiday cards at Barnes and Noble (I'm not sure why since I don't actually send any) and this woman starts to make smalltalk about the lack of card selection and how she forgot to send a card to her insurance man. I thought to myself, what the hell is an insurance man and why does he get a card?

The next day, I picked up my bridesmaid dress at David's Bridal, and then I went to the Irvine Spectrum to complete all of my Christmas shopping. This time, I stuck to my shopping list. Nothing too interesting happened here, except for a funny experience at the Cheesecake Factory. I went in to get a slice of cheesecake to go. When the guy behind the cheesecake counter handed me my cheesecake, he called me "young lady." I hate it when people call me this, but what made this funny was that the guy and I were probably the same age.

Moving on to Oceanside now. I continued my crossword puzzle mission; this time I did the ones in the San Diego newspaper and not the LA Times like I'm used to. The crossword puzzles were more of a group effort in Oceanside, and I learned that completing them in pencil is practically a law in the M household. On the first day, I used a pen to do the crossword puzzle, and everyone looked at me like I was on crack.

Whenever I go to Oceanside for Christmas, we have these recurring conversations about the weather. They go something like this: Someone will complain that it is "cold and freezing." Then I look at that person, roll my eyes, and tell him or her to stop whining. This happened multiple times in the course of 4 days. I told the O-side family that my grandma C had to reschedule Christmas because of the cold weather and snowstorms. They scoffed and said that they would never reschedule Christmas. When it started to rain, they jokingly wondered if we should cancel Christmas. More eye rolling.

There are always lots of laughs whenever I go to Oceanside. The family ikes to make fun of my alleged tendencies to hit on family friends when I've been drinking. We all make fun of each other a lot, particularly my mom's cousin Mike and I. Eileen said that he and I share the Ryan family sense of humor and a witty sarcasm.

So now I'm back in Irvine, stocking up on my sleep and taking advantage of the after Christmas sales. I bought a new cookbook, and I stocked up on bubble baths, body creams, and lotions from Bath and Body Works.

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