Merry Christmas! Surprise, my dears, surprise!

That title was my first line in the 3rd grade Christmas play, "A Mother Goose Christmas". I was Mother Goose.

And I feel a bit surprised this year, and in a good way.

What I planned and what actually happened this weekend were not exactly similar.'Friday, I suspect that the cold and the business of the weekend before Christmas intersected to prevent anyone from showing up for caroling. Roommate and I went to the loop and met up with The Boy and wound up just enjoying a beautiful meal at the Ginger Bistro. Mmm. Then we came home and started getting ready for the party Saturday night. We moved the furniture around, and had gotten most of the floor done (but not all of it) when I started getting visitors!!

This is NOT a complaint, by the way. It was great to have everyone come over on a Friday night and just hang out without an agenda or crap for me to be doing. Oh, sure, I turned into The Hostess and made sure everyone had some hot tea or chocolate to drink. I offered some snacks. And then I enjoyed my guests. We had the_ungoth and his son, as well as The Boy as overnight visitors. We had my usual Girls Slumber Party of my two roommates and myself, and we had my other roommate's sister come by, plus phierma and cosx. There was dolly fun by dolly folks, there was NON-dolly fun by the folks who are sick of the dolls invading our lives, there was laughter and warmth and fun!

All this despite the fact that I never did manage to complete the reconfiguration of the house, I never finished the floor or put away the craft crap that's still all over the living room. We had to carefully find places to stash our cups, but no one seemed overly bothered by that.

The good news is that the next time I host, most of that junk will be dealt with. The better news is that we still managed to have an awesome time.

Of course, the bad news was that I lost cleaning time, and therefore the Saturday gathering suffered from the same problems. However, using the big screen to show movies and Samurai Jack was plenty of fun, and I think the low-key cool-down-from-Santarchy party was still great.

Speaking of Santarchy, I do think that just hitting the first part is right up my alley these days. We quit *before* my body decided to rebel. Yes, I know that the "pub crawl" aspect of the thing is loads of fun, too, but I find that interacting with the crowd is a significant part of the fun for me. Hanging around at Union Station in costume and giving out treats to passing kids? Yeah, sign me up for that! We also got to see the Fudgery's show and buy some delicious fudge. (Presents!)

My budget was blown on Friday with that visit to the Ginger Bistro, but fortunately I got off cheap at Santarchy this year. (Some of the advantage of going early...)

So overall, it was a win. I work today, then I'm off on Monday and Tuesday. Functionally, these are my last days off before I leave for Alabama, so I do have a lot to get done on those days. However, that does not mean that I'm unavailable; it just means that you should call me or email me and I'll let you know if I have time.

So Happy Holidaze to all!

Tell me a Story for Christmas

So many people assure me that yes, they still read LJ, that they still post occasionally, but that the lure of the other social networking sites is that one can simply post brief meaningless updates. Livejournal is apparently for long stories and deep thoughts.

Ok. So I challenge you to use your LiveJournal to post a story. Tell us a story about the Holidays, and I'm particularly looking for surprises, good and bad. Are you non-Christian and found yourself being roped into a church celebration? Did you receive a gift that was something you never expected (and hated, or loved?) Share your Christmas/Yule/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New-Year's story in your journal, and link to it in the comments of this post.