Christmas Update

[lederhosen]

Uberboss wandered the corridors the other day in a Santa suit, strolling from office to office with a "Ho F*cking Ho" for all. He's sort of like what would happen if Keith the Moravian Swearing Bear married Santa and had kids.

Negotiated with reynardo yesterday on whether, seeing as how she was working from 5 pm on the 24th to 1 am on the 25th, it would technically be Present-Opening Time when she got home. Lost that argument, with result that had to wait until the morning.

Slept, got up, opened disturbing presents from deor & malada and a jar from Moxie. Rey cuddled up to the jar and went back to sleep for another hour.

Then off to Rey's parents' place to meet up with them, da_norvegicus and Tony for Christmas lunch. (Rey's grandmother is off in Armidale with her other daughter this year, since Rey's mother bought her a plane ticket...) Bizarrely, da_norvegicus decided we should have lunch *before* presents (must check his temperature) and we did.

Mmm, presents. Among other things, I scored The Hunger on DVD - something I've been looking for for ages - and also Happy Tree Friends Season 1. Tony scored a gigantic Lego thing from all of us. But perhaps the most eagerly-awaited presents of all were those from Rey's grandmother.

da_norvegicus got a stapler. Rey and I got a block of compound cooking chocolate a month past its use-by date, and a pack of Dollar Fives that... well, for all I know, they may have been within their use-by, because they didn't have it listed anywhere. Not even a batch number, and I thought anything like that that was intended for human consumption was supposed to have that stuff. Not sure what Rey's mother got, but her sister also got the chocolate.

Home, and took Dog-Or for a nice walk around the necropolis. Tomorrow, off to see the Incredibles, and then several days of unpacking boxes. Yaaay.

Comments

[deor.livejournal.com]

But perhaps the most eagerly-awaited presents of all were those from Rey's grandmother.

OMG. She wouldn't happen to have a Canadian sister who married an American, would she? Because that sounds *exactly* like the sort of presents my step-grandmother sends.

There was the child-sized scarf and hat apparently from a fire sale - with a strong smell of smoke still in. There was the box of chocolates to the person who'd recently been ordered on a no-fat, no-sugar diet. There was the cheap laundry-bag with the receiver's name misspelled. (Hey, she'd only known the person for 40 years.) There were .... but you get the idea. And have had the presents.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Heh. Nancy likes to do all her Christmas shopping in one place. Last time it was the $5 bin at a video store - I got 'Fighter Pilot'. I'm so *obviously* a John Wayne fan ;-)

We wouldn't be bothered at all if she gave us nothing (after all, we don't give her anything - the only reason we still have anything to do with her is for the sake of Rey's mother, who has the unenviable job of trying to deal with her). And she *is* genuinely short of money (even if it is entirely her own fault). But I think presents like hers are in a way more insulting than nothing at all would've been.

[fluffy-cloud.livejournal.com]

What are Dollar Fives?

[da-norvegicus.livejournal.com]

Sprinkles, five different types. There's blue, green, pink, yellow, and hundreds and thousands.

Also, I managed to score a book called "How to be a pirate", most likely for younger audiences.

[panacea1.livejournal.com]

Hey, with that and your stapler you can build a pirate ship!

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I think 'hundreds and thousands' are 'nonpareils' in US English, BTW.

[panacea1.livejournal.com]

Or "sprinkles, no not the chocolate jimmies but those little round ones, whaddyacallem, those thingies?"

I think you and I sorted that out one night after a bit of confusion and some ones and zeroes getting caught in the teeth.

I know I've got them, whatever you want to call them, all wedged in the upholstry of the front seat of my car, an unfortunate side effect of transporting cookies last weekend...

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

What da_norvegicus said - worth rather less than the name implies. I'd have guessed she was cleaning out her pantry cupboard, but Rey's mother thinks it came from the "fell off the back of a truck" markets, which might explain the lack of legally required batch info etc.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

My mother got herself a tape dispenser.

Apparently, someone unnamed pinched her old one.

At least I know she doesn't mean me.

Dollar Fives being sprinkles, they'll never go off. Too high a sugar and/or preservative content. They're like cachous.

Batch numbers they should have had. Did they have an ingredients list?

The cooking chocolate will still be alright to use in cooking for another year or two (or twelve). Just don't use it in anything you're getting paid to make. Not that you didn't know this already. Dates on food are just the dates beyond which the manufacturer cannot guarantee the quality.

Big hugs for everyone, including the sweet fluffy puppy.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Batch numbers they should have had. Did they have an ingredients list?

I think so, but not sure; there were no batch numbers anywhere on the box. We looked over it very carefully.

The chocolate... yeah, it probably wouldn't have hurt us, but it looked pretty cheap and nasty even aside from the expiry date. I guess the bigger reason for tossing it is just that it's simpler not to keep gifts from Nancy; nothing she's ever given us has been worth the strings attached.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

If you're not sure about its' quality, I definitely understand tossing it. It's not worth risking the effort to make something that doesn't turn out because the ingredients weren't of a quality equivalent to the amount of effort you put in.