Dog Abuse

The Christmas whirlwind ended yesterday. It has been three very busy days. Christmas Eve we drove down to Niagara stopping first at my parents. My Mom has their house in the festive spirit. They usually have a fake tree decorated, but this year she had a small real tree decorated in the living. It was minimalist and very cute. One of the reasons we wanted to stop there was to setup their house with Wifi. We ended up giving my Dad a tablet for Christmas (the same one bdot got!) so I wanted him to be able to get it online. After a delightful dinner we ventured to my Aunt’s in Fonthill. It has been a few years since we last attended my family’s Christmas. Over the years it certainly has lost its lustre. I remember it being much more memorable an experience when I was younger and my grandparents were still around. Christmas was still a magical time. I still enjoy seeing my family… I see most of them so rarely… but it doesn’t feel the same. It is also pretty poorly attended… most of my cousins and my sister were absent. Ho-hum. The night was full of the usual ribbing and everyone catching up… We got home pretty late and crashed.

Mom's tree

Christmas 2011

Bdot and I rolled out of bed fairly early Christmas day as we were hosting Christmas Day for my parents, bdot’s brother, my sister and brother in law so we had to get things ready. We also exchange our own gifts Christmas morning. I got bdot the same tablet as my Dad, a jewelry box and a Sony e-reader. My ‘primary’ gift was suppose to be a tablet as well, but alas… mine is still unavailable *frownyface*. Bdot still gave me a few thoughtful gifts so I had something to open anyway. A Joyful CD, a ton of chocolate, a threadless tee and a few magazines. (Screw you ASUS for ruining Christmas! 😛) We didn’t have too much time to enjoy the morning since the horde soon descended on our home. Everyone arrived at the same time. *eyeroll* My sister brought her dogs so…that meant four dogs in the house. Usually my sister’s dog and mine can be controlled to some extent, but adding the fourth was grain of sand that tipped the scales. The dog we are watching is high strung and whines A LOT. Having him out with the other dogs created chaos… so he was put upstairs for part of the evening. So he screamed the entire time. I HATE THAT SOUND. HATE HATE HATE. It is like screaming babies distorted through an amplifier. It is the nails on my chalkboard. It can’t go away, it can’t be ignored it just grinds away at my nerves until I snap. So I tried best I could to occupy myself as far away from the noise as I could… It worked with varying degrees of success and failure throughout the evening. Stupid dog.

It should be noted, alone here with Tanga he is fine most of the time.

Anyway… opening presents was fun. My sister has some ridiculous over-wrapping skills. She wrapped a new driver for JP and he was unwrapping it for 10m. I got a few sweaters, some useful giftcards, Dark Souls and more chocolate. As noted earlier, my Dad got a tablet and seemed to have taken well to it as he played Angry Birds for the rest of the evening. He had to be detached from his new toy. My mom got a higher-end pull cart for her golf clubs. As a gag gift my sister and JP got lightsabres…which naturally led to a few duels. After a busy few hours everyone was plenty hungry. Bdot cooked up a fantastic roast beast and incredible stuffing. My mom brought amazing pierogi and dessert. We ate like Kings and Queens… the food was exceptional! The evening was a little quieter, apparently it wasn’t the turkey’s fault (Tryptophan) either.

We woke up a little later on Boxing Day since we were heading over to Bdot’s sister’s for more Christmas revelry. From one madhouse to another it seems. We have three young nephews who are usually in fine form and jacked up on sugar every time we go over. Boxing day was no exception. Boys will be boys, there is never a dull moment and lulls between someone screaming about something were very few. We got the boys a marble racing kit. It looked awesome on the box in the store… then we opened it and found 400 pieces to assemble. OMG. I’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve assembled presents for several decades now… but this one was an effort in futility. Sure there were instructions but trying to translate them into reality created a frustrating mess. After a key piece couldn’t be found and more sections didn’t match… we boxed it up and learned a valuable lesson. Buy kids gifts with the label NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. We broke up the afternoon with a trip to BestBuy. It was busy, but not crazy, I didn’t find anything I was looking for. Ho-hum. Dinner was bdot’s delicious chicken enchilada casserole. Dessert was the popular chocolate fountain. After dinner we chilled for a bit then called it a night.

Today was a recovery mega-chill day. Other than walking the dogs, I didn’t leave the house. Bdot finally got a chance to play with her new toys and I played a little Dark Souls. It is a challenging game… it is a shame they didn’t use a save anywhere mechanic… I find this a terrible oversight for such a tough game. Oh well… Not sure if the thrill of progress will be greater than the frustration of repeating sections of the game over and over and over again. *eyeroll* In the evening we watched X-Men First Class. It was a solid action film. Explosions, super-heroes, drama with some historical Cuban missile crisis theme weaved throughout the plot. ⭐⭐⭐½ I’m zonked now and I’m heading to bed.

And finally… SNOW! Yes we have a blanket of the white stuff here in Caledon. I even shovelled the driveway for the first time of the season.