Christmas 2010

This year like usual, Darin & I started our Christmas eve by dropping by my Aunt Mary's house in Livermore to have dinner with my parents & my dads side of the family. Usually we kinda dread this get together as:
1) Crazy Aunt Michele... she's the aunt nobody really enjoys being around. She's the one whos usually the most opinionated and usually the drunk of the night.
2) the lame ornament exchange in which we bring an ornament to give to someone but no one ever puts effort into picking one out to gift & usually the ornament we get is super shitty and the one we give is never appreciated.
3) The Scott side is usually very opinionated & they like to gossip & Darin & I sometimes feel like we just dont fit in
and this year...
4) My super gringo side of the family decided on having a "mexican" themed dinner. So you can kinda guess how that goes when not one of the family members is even the slight bit of mexican.

So yea.. crazy aunt michele was her usual self. I didnt really speak much to her, and havent since she made a big stink about her invitation to my wedding which didnt include her boys & divorced husband & blew it waaaay out of proportion & harassed my family about it day in & day out (by the way, i never wanted to invite her.. my dad made me).
The mexican dinner was lame & not so great. Gringos making cultural food.. not a good idea, i think. I mean common, I can go to taco bell any day of the year but how often am I going to have a turkey/ham/cauliflower/etc feast??? Luckily, there was a margarita machine in the garage so pretty much all the cousins hung out there & drank ourselves to comfort.=)
Ornament exchange.. was actually alright this year. Beforehand I had sent a long email to my aunt suggesting that next year we quit the exchange because as I mentioned, no one ever puts any effort into their ornaments except for my aunt mary & my dad (who always makes intricate ones out of wood). Anyways, this year we drew names out of a hat and whoever's name we drew, we gave our ornament to them. So fortunately, I drew my aunt mary's name & got a cute lil snowman ornament & then my dad drew my name which was a relief since I knew for sure my ornament would go appreciated. This year I decided to make my ornament on the scroll saw my dad gave me and boy, that was time consuming. Here's the lil bad boy I made (its wood):

Soon after the ornament exchange Darin & I cut out. Next stop was his portuguese family get together in San Jose.
These get togethers usually aren't the best either, but a little more tolerable than mine. I can tell though, that it's kinda starting to die off. Everyone used to come bringing tons of appetizers & desserts and we'd all stuff ourselves, but its getting pretty effortless now. I think once Darin's grandmother passes, the get togethers will cease. No one really seems like they want to be there for family.. more like forced to be there for grandma. =( Sad. Oh well. I kept myself occupied by working on a buzz with the past margaritas & now wine. =) Nothing too action packed happened at this get together.

My outfit of the night:

Christmas day was pretty nice. Darin & I slept in & when we woke up, gathered around the tree & opened presents. This year's gift exchange between eachother was a bit on the light side since we made our big move & cuz my ass is unemployed. But.. of course, Darin always brightens things up.. and even though I wasn't really expecting much from him, he got me a cute top, some weightlifting gloves (yes!) and a vintage fur stole that I had been wanting for years. =) I got him a couple different shirts.

Darin showing off one of this shirts I got him

A gift tag on one of the gifts Darin gave me... yea, we have the nicest pet names for eachother. lol

Spooky waiting to see if Santa was coming to bring more gifts because apparently Oscar got more gifts that he did =( (we bought him something better the next day)

Darin & Oscar

Santa brought Oscar a stuffed toy "meal" that consisted of toy Turkey, corncob, muffin, baked potato & veggie rope

Later that evening we headed over to my parents house & had dinner with them & my Mom's side of the family. My mom's side is Peruvian, so there is always a lil peruvian influence to some of the foods. But yummy. We gave each of my parents an individual gift & then we also gave them an album of pictures from our wedding. A couple months earlier when I received my wedding album, I took it over to show my parents & they loved it, but my mom thought it was a copy for them.. unfortunately it wasnt & I felt bad. After inquiring about another album from our photorapher, the price was waaaay out of my range and fortunately my sister in law told me about snapfish.com & I was able to upload my pictures on the website & make an album & have it sent to me. It came out pretty well. Looked professional with the leather covers and images were great and for a mere fraction of the cost!

After dinner with my parents, we went to visit Darin's parents & brother who was up from L.A and stuck around for a bit. Darin ate a 2nd dinner with them but I was not about to stuff myself. I just dont understand over stuffing yourself with food when it comes to the holidays.
All in all, I guess this year was alright. Not as bad as I thought it would end up. =)



Darin & I on Christmas day, 2010