Christmas

Christmas was great. Dinner #1 (Dec 25th) was with my mom's side of the family, and will probably live on in infamy for the rest of our christmases together. At the very least, there will be a lifetime of teasing my aunt about what time the turkey will be ready (answer: hopefully before 10pm) and about her sitting on the floor & drinking martinis strategy for cooking dinner. Dinner #2 - also lots of fun, because for the first time ever, I beat my family TWICE when we played cards. Woo.

In gift news, my dad refinished my mom's old table set for me, and I'm really excited about not having to eat dinner on the couch every night. Mark and I got a ton of new books too, and I'm dying to just sit down and read for a month straight (alas, I will have to start mcatting before that will happen).

Titles:

The Upside of Down (Thomas Homer Dixon)
What is the What (David Eggers)
Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
Heat (Monbiot)
Che (?)
Louis Riel: A Comic strip biography (Chester Brown)
Collected non-fiction of Joan Didion
The Children's Hospital (Chris Adrian) - I'm halfway through this one and it is soooo good.

and M's fantastic gifts:
Love that Dog (Sharon Creech; guaranteed to make hearts swell)
Elvis on the Trombone (Megan F. - probably guaranteed to be my favourite of the bunch)