My BFF, Tracey, picked me up from the airport on the Tuesday night before Christmas, and we touched boobs while modeling the new chevron necklaces she bought us:
This is us trying not to smile.
My parents were out of the state until Sunday, so I spent the rest of the week at Tracey’s, watching “Sex and the City” for the first time, finding out that it’s teeeeerrible both fashion-wise and supposedly-portraying-women-as-independent-but-actually-portraying-them-as-lonely-and-shallow-wise, cleansing my palate with the muuuuuch better “Girls”, crying over every episode of “Enlightened”, taking pictures of Tracey’s cats, eating all of the fast foods, reliving our childhoods with Return to Oz, The NeverEnding Story, and Labyrinth, wishing we had the RiffTrax version of Twilight, and making fudge. Cake batter fudge.
I got to do a photoshoot with Tracey’s brother, his wife, their toddler, and their brand new baby at the Franklin Park Conservatory. This is not a picture of them but of a piece from the Aurora Robson exhibit made, basically, of trash:
We tried the famous meatloaf at Cap City Diner and ate ice cream at Jeni’s partly because it’s splendid and partly because every food blogger on the Internet is obsessed with it, and I can make them jealous since Jeni’s only has physical locations in Ohio and Tennessee:
My first Christmas party began on Sunday afternoon with my cousin Bethany and me making chocolate peppermint rolls and ended with my cousin Keith and uncle Bob flashing me while I was innocently trying to take a family picture:
My dad’s side of the family gathered on Monday night, and chaos ensued when we moved the festivities to the basement, where the children were allowed to don their Iron Man masks and take boxes for hands. We used to hand out gifts one at a time, with the youngest person unwrapping a present first while the rest of us sat on our hands and so on until the oldest person had opened a gift and then back to the beginning, but it’s a free-for-all now, as the wrapping paper shreds on the floor would indicate:
Tuesday was lunch with my stepmom’s family, where all of the food used to seem so strange to me (corn pudding?) but that I now look forward to all year. I swear my stepbrother Josh and my stepsister’s twins, Hanna and Hope, were displaying this much familial love without me having to prod them:
Tracey and I and her husband, Dan, went to play cards with our friends Erin and Jenn as an excuse to see their new house, which is actually a very old house with tons of tiny, hidden doors leading to nowhere. They found the plans for the house in the basement which included a provision for only allowing white people to live there. Unapologetically racist!
We also saw our other-best-friend-from-high-school, Katie, and her kids, Maria and Evelyn:
We’d been trying to convince Katie to leave the girls with her husband so we could all get crunk and hit on boys at The Cheesecake Factory, but Katie somehow tricked us into coming to her house instead. I wanted to be mad at her, but dammit, I like those kids:
It snowed on Christmas Eve and was frosty enough that the snow stuck around the entire time I was there, creating some annoyingly picturesque views from our house:
Less annoying once my dad got out the Bobcat and found our driveway again:
My stepmom keeps the loveliest, most comfortable home full of antiques arranged in ways that would make magazine editors pee, and even her Christmas tree is always a sight to behold:
But it ain’t all classy:
My parents were about to have the floors redone in two of their rooms, so as I was saying goodbye, they were moving everything into other rooms. Not my dad’s hunting boots, though. They’ll construct the new floor around those. j/k. I’m just trying to lighten the mood light to keep myself from crying over the loss of the old floor.
CHRISTMAS!
And now I’m off to read every. single. blog post. you made while I was gone.
16 Comments
OK, it’s official. You take the best Christmas-light-bokeh photos. All other photographers, myself included, can just give up.
MUUUUURRY CRIMMAS! Albeit a little late. Happy new year, too, while we’re at it.
Thank god you’re white so we could let you come over and see the place.
I just love that your dad has his own Bobcat. I would go everywhere in that, especially the drivethru at Wendy’s.
It also looks like it could be used to help Sigourney Weaver fight off the Alien Queen.
“Get away from her, you Bitch… or I’ll plow ya!”
So I’ve never in my life had a white Christmas. And then Christmas Eve they predicted we might get snow on Christmas. Then East Texas took all our snow and left us with cold rain. So, what I’m saying is I’m extremely pleased by your picturesque photos, especially the one with the Bobcat.
A very Merry Christmas to you. I hope you had a lot of that amazing looking fudge (with sprinkles!)
Bahaha I was in East Texas. (And now I’m going to be depressed every Christmas that isn’t white.)
gorgeous pics as usual! I need to figure out bokeh, and also how to use my camera at all.
Yay, you’re back! Sounds like you had a great time.
I’m so jealous of your bokeh skills… and of all of this snow! We visited Sven’s parents for Christmas, and they always say that where they live they only have two seasons: winter and severe winter. I was hoping for another white Christmas there… but then it was the warmest Christmas since wheaterforecasts have been noticed in Germany. No snow at all, boo!
Um? Hi? I’m mad at you.
It’s ok, she forgot about me too.
Only in that a hurricane hit me! Our time together was meaningful, too! And I only have good things to say about you (ask Noel), which is boring.
It’s ok if you don’t want to share our nights spent together in a hotel room. I understand. Next time though I’ll make sure we touch boobs.
Our time together was very meaningful! You are my bosom friend, and I love that you love Little Women as much as I do and maybe even more!
But here’s my excuse: when I wrote this, I was just talking about pictures I wanted to post, which is why I also didn’t include stories of my very meaningful time with my parents and my special great-aunt and the entire party that my cousin threw in my honor. I actually didn’t write anything about visiting my friends Erin and Jenn at first due to the lack of photos but then went back and added that part in and was so glad I did when Erin was the second person to comment.
So you’re up there with my parents and other family, you see? I DID IT ON PURPOSE. Because I plan to write an entire blog post dedicated to you later. Yes, that’s it.
Man, your photos are just getting more and more incredible. The snow ones are so pretty.
Dashboard Confessional came on the radio yesterday and I thought of you.
Awesome. As always. Everywhere. Go figure.
And… A BOBCAT?! Too bad I wasn’t there, because THAT would have been a photo-op for you. I guarantee there would have been an ‘incident’. And quite possibly a full-body cast.
:)
I think you should add the top photo to your shop next Christmas! Sparkly!!