What Santa Brung

Well, Christmas 2010 has now come and gone, and it was completely unlike what we had planned, for a variety of reasons. It wasn't the surreal experience that 4 years ago was, when both of my housemates were down with the flu for the day. However, a good friend of ours who had hoped to spend the day with us has had an ailing parent take a turn for the worse, wiping all yuletide thoughts from her mind, unfortunately. As a result, Vicki volunteered to make an impromptu trip out of town to deliver some essentials to the friend in need. Of much lesser import, Tammy and I didn't get our hoped-for Christmas Day walk in with Julie when her schedule didn't accommodate it, but instead decided to go on it by ourselves... only to bump into Julie and some relatives of hers on the trail! It was just a strange day full of unexpected twists and turns.

But gifts were still exchanged, and my haul included the following:

• Books galore: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, Earth: The Book by The Daily Show staff, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut, The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins (which I've been particularly-eagerly awaiting!)
  
• Video games: Alan Wake and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, both for the XBox 360
  
• a Daily Show / Colbert Report T-shirt from their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
• The Hurt Locker on DVD
  
• 2 Lois Lanes and 1 Superman comic, all lovely and from the 1960s
• a homemade pillow and pillow case (superhero-themed, of course!)
• a Future Shop gift certificate, some yummy chocolates and other sundry treats

Vicki got some books, as well, along with snuggly PJs, a Doctor Who DVD (with the David Tennant specials), Lush cosmetics, gift certificates from a craft store and a plant nursery, and a new work bag and genuine African scarf and pottery bowl (courtesy of world traveler Tammy). Tammy wanted cash this year so she was forced to answer trivia questions of our devising in order to win various amounts, and made out just fine.

In other words, the three of us all did great, as usual. That much, at least, went according to the script.