This Year's Haul

Present-opening was delayed until early afternoon today thanks to a certain unnamed 21-year-old sleeping in until noon, but at least it wasn't put off until Boxing Day like happened last year!

Vicki seemed to enjoy both of her big presents this year: a $150 gift certificate to a local spa that I gave her and the new fancy purse that Tammy surprised her with. She also got a $100 voucher for a local cooking class (a perennial favourite of hers), a couple DVDs, the PS/3 Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (her most-loved video game franchise) and a big pile of books (to be added to her 1000+ item library that fills just over one wall of our front room).

Tammy got a new blender for her apartment and was presented with her Kristin Bell autographed photo - that she got in Chicago in August 2006 - nicely framed in a suitable form for going up on her wall in Toronto.

I was lucky enough to get a lovely Fine copy of the 2nd Ant-Man appearance (Tales to Astonish # 35.. yeah!!), 6 movies on DVD (4 of them from Tammy), the first season of St. Elsewhere on DVD, 2 video games (Call of Duty 4 on the PS/3, and the Half-Life 2 Orange Box for the 360), several issues of Thor from the Silver Age, two novels (one by Ann Tyler and the latest by Michael Crichton), a couple articles of clothing, and a big surprise: a John Totleben pencil-and-ink sketch of Swamp Thing from 1986 (during the heydey of his run with Alan Moore and Steve Bissette on that title) that Vicki had found on eBay (lovingly displayed at the top of this post)! It's screaming out to be framed and mounted on our walls sometime soon, so we'll be making another trip to the framer's shop before long.

All of that, and Tammy and I have been playing Halo 3 (campaign in Co-op Mode, and online with other people) every chance we get. This has definitely been a great Christmas so far!

The new movie list:

The Departed
Eastern Promises
The Lake House
Monster House
Pan's Labyrinth
Sicko
Spider-Man 3 (on Blu-Ray)
The Wind that Shakes the Barley