Christmas round-up (up to now, anyway)

The drive was not so bad. The added space of the SUV really made a difference - the dogs were able to spread out, and we made a nice little bed area for Simon on top of the suitcases in the back. He did not stay on that bed for the whole trip - he kept sneaking up to the front to lounge in my lap. But even that was not so cramped as it usually is in our tiny Jetta.

We have been thinking of buying an SUV, specifically a Ford Escape, and as luck would have it, that's the rental that we got. It's pretty awesome. Sexy Boyfriend has been testing the 4WD on it by randomly driving over snowbanks in front of our homes. So far it hasn't gotten stuck once, which speaks well to how it will perform on uncleared Montreal streets when you end up parked in a snowbank.

Christmas has been fantastic - lots of yummy turkey and a lobster-roll lunch at Sexy Boyfriend's house. We opened our gifts last night, and everyone was really happy, my little sister especially. She had asked my mom for an iPod mini, and in October my mom called me asking my advice. I told her that if that's what she really wanted, she should buy it right away because they were being replaced by the Nano. In November, when my sister reiterated that she was pining for a mini, my mom told her that they were sold out everywhere and she couldn't get her hands on one. My sister then did some research online to find out that my mom was telling the truth. So, when my sister opened her last gift to find a pretty blue iPod mini, she freaked. She actually broke down crying, which made the rest of us cry. It was so cute.

Other than that, things were normal and uneventful. Presents, food, laughing, drinking, it was super fun. Oh, and our Christmas tree randomly fell over while we were snacking on spinach dip. We were sitting around our kitchen/dining table, and the tree is in the living room which is open to the dining area. I forget what we were talking about, but I was looking directly at my sister, when I could see the tree leaning and falling directly behind her head. Not only did a few ornaments get smashed (surprisingly few, actually), but my mom had just watered the tree that afternoon and the water poured onto all the gifts. Luckily no one had any books or anything paper that got washed away. My sister got an ugly scarf, though, and we're going to tell everyone it got ruined in the flood.