holly jolly

it's december. what the heck - where did the year go?

this year's black friday extravaganza was ... fairly successful though i realize that alan is a) a good sport for indulging my need to black friday shop and b) not a good shopper. i put him on a line at a children's store (which is usually one of the mobbed places) and when he got to the front of the line, i signalled to him to let someone go in front of him. ie. to keep a perpetual place at the front of the line so that when i was ready, we could check out. (and if that sounds mean to him, well, i think he prefers that to wandering around with me in the store looking at tiny cargo shorts and such). he apparently misinterpreted my hand signals as directions to go to the back of the line and reset. now, i have to admit that i'm not one to have much patience, and i've got to get better at being impatient when such things happen but ... i had trouble understanding why he thought going to the back of the line would help us get out of there any faster.

i ended up having to leave that store bc at that point, i was ready to check out but he was at the back of the line. and then he was poopy that i got mad at him in the store for being nonsensical. i'm sure he has no desire to be trained in shopping strategy, though.

in any event, i had a mission of certain key items to find, which i was fairly pleased with. mostly new clothes for al and dad, including a suit, some nice winter coats, and plenty of sweaters. though after all the money and time spent getting a nice new winter wardrobe (at massive discount, i might add) - the only thing i bought him that he was interested in was a stitch stuffed animal from the disney store. he hasn't stopped doing the impersonation all week. it's cute, i must say, and a future useful skill to distract or appease a crying kid, but i do find it amusing that he likes to play make-believe with stuffed animals way more than i do. eh, though he also likes to cook more than i do so i suppose gender traditions aren't very important.

moving along.

so december is upon us and that means christmas parties. i love christmas. and despite the inevitably sucky weather, it's still the most wonderful time of the year. with cyber monday, i just finished my christmas shopping and hope to be done wrapping by next week. the pile of presents in the corner of my apt is growing impressively large, which makes me feel all holly jolly.

the first weekend of parties commences this friday, with tkd team secret ninja. invited some new people this year, which is good to bring them into the fold ... but makes it a little more difficult for gift exchanging considering people might not know each other. hopefully everyone gets to know each other a little better ... funny enough, i'm probably the one who's around the least at the dojang. sad.

saturday brings the park family xmas extravaganza, where each year the wrapping paper carnage as 14 kids unwrap no less than 8 gifts apiece is sheer chaos. but i love it, despite the fact that being the only unmarried and only childless cousin results in a very poor return on investment for me. but it's cool, i like buying kid gifts throughout the year. this will be al's debut with the rest of the cousin clan, which i'm not so much apprehensive about but still interested to see how he fits in. if nothing else he can give patrick some consolation that there's now a second non-korean in the bunch. eh, everyone's gotten so old they've all mellowed by now anyways, i think they'll just be fascinated to see who's actually willing to date me.

sunday = some sort of surprise thing that i suppose is not necessarily christmas but al says involves bry/carol and (much to my dismay) looking nice. i'm not sure if this is belated birthday or pre-xmas but yay for surprises.

and that would be week 1 of december. let the festivities begin.