Christmess is the holiday celebrated the day after Christmas, when you have to clean up the mess you made on Christmas.

This year's christmas was somewhat convoluted, stretched out and fragmentary, but enjoyable none-the-less. The only family I was with was my dad, who came to San Diego because I couldn't get off work. I actually worked on Christmas day, but my Dad, roomates, roomates' families and friends and I all celebrated christmas on christmas eve. So this year, christmas and christmess were on the same day. I got out of the cleaning, one of the only perks of having to work. Christmas eve was very enjoyable. I slept in, had a lazy morning, then watched the Saints beat the Giants. My dad and I then went across the street to my roomate's parents' house to watch the Chargers vs. Seattle. It was an awesome game with good company, complete with a game-winning deep touchdown pass with seconds left in the game to win it. It set a festive mood for us for the rest of the evening. We then stuffed our house full of relatives and friends, gathering mostly around the Wii in the living room. We had a great dinner prepared by Mario with several dishes brought by guests. The meal was "Hamtastic"! We then retired to the living room and took turns playing "Guitar Hero 2" on the Playstation 2. This was good, silly fun. My dad even played. It had to be the first time in history that my dad could be convinced to try a video game. I challenged everyone to a real-life guitar duel, but had no takers.

My dad took off early on christmas morning. Since I had to work, there was no need for him to stick around and be bored on christmas. He returned to Oatman to spend the day with his adopted family. I opened a couple of remaining gifts with my roomates. I got a robot desk lamp from my mom. Her annual toy for me. It's a robot with a lamp for a head that has articulated limbs and hands that can grasp things. I dig it, but haven't figured out where to put it, yet. From my roomates I got a Dr. Who toy sonic screwdriver, complete with Invisible ink and UV light to reveal it. Fun! The rest of my christmas will be celebrated with my mother next weekend when I get to North Carolina. Probably Saturday morning.

I'll be in the state for 2 weeks starting friday, and am looking VERY MUCH forward to the new year's gathering (actually th 30th instead of the 31st) at the Mitchells' residence in Statesville. It'll be the first one of these I've been able to attend since 2000, thanks to the eternal impossibility of getting off work for the holidays. I wanted to go so much that I traded away any time off requests I had in for Christmas and actually worked my days off Thanksgiving weekend in order to insure that I got it. I'm wanting to make a definitive decision on whether or not, and when, I'm going to move back to the east coast, and seeing all those people again will be instrumental in aiding such a decision. I need to find my path again. It has been lost for several years now, and these are the people that I had once been sure my path lied with. It will be useful to shed some "Other Light" on the subject.

For now,

Merry Christmess!