Merry Christmas!

Before Tuesday, I hadn't really been feeling the stress of the holidays. I wouldn't even call it "stress," there has just been a lot going on. Tuesday, right after work, my family and I went to Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville. We ate at the buffet, drove through the lights, and actually stayed in the little hotel. We've been going to the light display forever, but the buffet and hotel only started becoming a tradition maybe 5 years ago. It's nice to get away from everything just for a night, though. We end up playing games at the hotel and don't even turn on the tv.

This year and last year we played a game called "Backseat Drawing." Ever heard of it? The game consists of a Director and an Artist. The Director(s) look at a word on a card and then tell the Artist(s) how to draw it, using only shape and directional terms. My sister and I make a good team because I'm good at describing what to draw and she's good at guessing it as she's drawing (then we switch and it still works pretty well). It's kind of hard, but pretty fun (probably one of my favorite games). I had never seen or heard of it before my mom bought it. She saw it on the shelf and thought it sounded interesting. Well, tonight I went to Joel's parents' house for Christmas Eve dinner, and that game was sitting (open) on the table! How random is that? Sadly, though, I had to leave before they started playing it.

I met (the rest of) his family last spring and have seen them a few times since then, but I was still nervous. Even though his parents invited me and I have a decent amount of things in common with his mom and sister, I felt kind of like I was intruding. The initial awkwardness went away after a while, though, and I was enjoying it. Joel broke out the can of bee larvae for...one of the desserts...and we all tried it--yes, even me! The newest larvae kind of looked and tasted like rice, even, but I definitely stayed away from the ones that were more fully formed (those were black and had wings?!). It was entertaining, anyway. After that, they went to start the game and I had to go home for 10pm mass. I was genuinely sad, and I'm sure they had way more fun than I did.

I had not been to church in a while, and they had all new priests. They sang almost everything they said, which the old priest didn't do. It sounds like they're making the melody up as they go, but everyone knows the same weird tune. It's kind of like watching a tone-deaf musical. Or this scene in Elf (starts around 10 seconds):



Ha, I'm sorry...or, I guess I should be. Anyway, I'm at my parents' house and Santa's coming tonight (SANTA!!!), so I should start thinking about bed. Merry Christmas!