Merry Christmas, everyone!

I was running around most of yesterday getting things ready for our annual family Christmas party. I like how the parties have slowly become less of a glamorous affair each year; no Chinese-dressed theme or anything silly like that this year.

I'll make a list of things I received this Christmas and add it to this entry later on. I've just got a few things, but I'm happy with them. ♥

For our secret Santa gift exchange, I got my cousin Nintendo T-shirts and a Prinny. You know you got them something good when they're already joking about scenarios where they can show off the T-shirt (it's a black shirt with a purple poison mushroom and the words Game Over on it).

I'm worried about the weather, though. We've thankfully had clear weather for the last three days, but it's currently snowing outside. And my parents and sister have to head home today, since my mom has to work on Friday. I hope they'll figure something out...

And now I'm going back to bed. Need more sleep.

( The list of presents )

... Any other person would be asleep still. But our power just came back, so I moved everything into my room.

Oh. Yeah, probably should back up a little, huh?

So my little brother and I packed up and went back home for vacation. The Pac NW had a fierce storm on Thursday; they shut down the floating bridge and some other bridges down in Oregon because of the waves. Even Deception Pass (the only way to drive onto Whidbey Island) was shut down because of falling trees--there's a ton of evergreens there, and we could still see the broken tree limbs and brush on the ground when we drove through last night.

Power was out for the last hour of the drive before got home. My brother had the smart idea of taking the back roads before we got to Mount Vernon, and it paid off; Hwy 20 was a mess because the frickin' traffic lights in three cities were out and we managed not to get caught up in the worst of it.

Our entire city had no power--I swear the only lights I saw on were at the inns and the fire station. ... Well, and the Comcast tower, but they're obligated to keep that up via generator. It's kinda creepy pulling into our cul de sac without any lights.

I'm still kinda amused that we arrived around 7 PM and everyone was ready for bed by 10:30. That's the earliest I've ever seen the entire house turn in for the night.

... Bleh. I'm going back to bed.