My parents were in the midst of buying new furniture for the place and while we were there there were we had to listen to all sorts of heated debates between them about how the new furniture should be arranged when it arrived.
When my dad reached into the bottom of his stocking for one last item and then pulled out this teeny tiny copy of FENG SHUI FOR DUMMIES, I nearly lost my mind laughing. Santa is king of the subtle slaying (sleighing?). Hahaha.
And how about these birthday gems from good old brother Lawrence: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Judaism and Why Marry Jewish?. Subtle, Lawrence. Very subtle.
After my dad was done opening his present, we moved on to some Christmas gifts that we'd never gotten a chance to give each other because Meredith and I were both sick in late December and were under quarantine.
On January 2nd, a couple more gifts I'd gotten for Meredith showed up in the mail! (Because it's rare that I ever order any gifts early enough to have them actually show up on time!) The first gift was a...
Tuesday was PRESENT DAY (our atheists version of Christmas & Hanukkah) in our apartment. Meredith and I both pretty much buy what few things we want all the time. So Present Day is about fun little gifts you think the other person will love but might not have gotten on their own. Meredith went first and opened up some...
And here's my reaction to opening a card and finding a slip for a pre-ordered Amazon Kindle from Mer's parents. Holy moly, awesome gift! Thanks so much!
At 4:30 everyone stopped working and headed into the conference room for the big YANKEE SWAP! Everyone brings a present, then everyone chooses numbers. The person with the lowest number gets to pick a present first! Then the person with the next lowest number goes. Each person after the first person can keep the gift they open, or they can trade gifts with another person. However, each gift can only be "stolen" twice - so the person that steals a gift a second time gets to safely keep it! It's quite the game of strategy!
Then it was present time! I gave Leigh her birthday present from Meredith and me (picked out by Meredith cus' she's the best at getting people good gifts) and it was...
Meredith couldn't come because she had to get up early the next morning for work (and not everyone a weirdo like me who likes to go out at midnight on Wednesdays). In lieu of her attendance, Meredith gave me a little bday present to give to Dens from her.
...Super Monkeyball Banana Blitz for Wii. She was pretty stoked on it, but nothing could prepare her for how excited she was about to get over present #2...
I was so excited for Meredith to open the birthday presents I got for her that I ended up giving them to her a full week before her actual birthday! Here she is getting ready to open up present #1...
Then it was time to head to the living room and open some presents! (It's a long-standing tradition in my house that we open presents that night before Christmas - it was a tradition born when my parents realized that this was a better alternative than my brother and I waking them up at 5am in order to unwrap our loot!).
On Friday night I went over to Sarah's for dinner and I brought along the "Pasture Pals" Christmas present that Meredith had picked out for Ellen. Look at that smile! Can you tell how much she liked it?
Carol scored the other awesome "variety bag" present. A bottle of HBO Rome-themed wine, gingerbread men cookies, a little chocolate doo-hickey, and most-randomly, a copy of the Sex Advice From... book with a photo of Leigh on the front that I shot the cover for!
On Wednesday night a whole bunch of us went over to Ellen Stagg's apartment for her annual Secret Santa party! Here's Katie and Ellen getting ready to kick off the gift giving!
And last but not least, a fancy carrying case for her new laptop! (And yes, I really do have a girlfriend that gets totally stoked about getting a laptop bag for Valentine's Day! I win!). Happy Valentine's Day, gorgeous!
And finally....Grant got a new backpack! (By the way, there were like 20 other pictures of lots of little gifts but I decided to not include them because this entry is already ridiculously long). After we were done with the present giving, we talked Grant into giving us...
Siege got a game called "What the F*ck" that's supposed to help you instigate naughtiness at parties. (Yeah, like this fuggin' guy needs help in that department).
Siege gave us all awesome, limited-edition signed prints! Fatty got this portrait of himself (that was an out-take from Fiasco's first band photo shoot that Siege did).
Grant got a giant thing of massage oil - because everyone knows that he's super into hours of candle-lit foreplay and erotic massage. That guy's a dyed-in-the-wool sensualist!
Amanda prepares to open the giant, over-sized nativity scene card that I got for here that played music when you open it! (The MIDI version of "Silent Night, Holy Night" if I recall correctly).
And Fatty got The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating. Hahahahah. See? Are you starting to see a pattern here? (Check out his "Haha - fuck you guys" face).
