Christmas with the Parents

Christmas was weird this year. For many reasons. First and foremost, my brother wasn't here for the holiday. He spent his first Christmas in Washington, and I spent my first Christmas ever without him. This was a pretty sad occasion for me. You have to understand that I'd only recently given up our childhood arrangement of him spending the night in my room on Christmas Eve. I'm pretty attached to him. ;-)

 Secondly, Christmas Day was on a Sunday, which is kind of an awkward day to have it on. This meant I didn't even get a weekday off work. Finally, while my parents came down that weekend, they were gone before Sunday, so this was the first time Francisco and I celebrated Christmas with just the two of us.

After work on Friday, we exchanged our first presents of the weekend. I got new American Eagle jammers, and Francisco got Wolferman's English muffins.

We decided to just stay in for dinner because we'd ordered pizza from Taglio on Thursday, and they accidentally burned it. So, when we arrived to pick it up, they'd already started a fresh pizza for us and said they wouldn't be charging us for it. In a happy accident, we only paid like $7.00 (for the mozzarella sticks) and got this appetizer + 2 pizzas.  Luckily, Francisco didn't have a problem with eating overdone pizza, and we had lots of Taglio for a couple days!

 My parents decided at the last minute that they were going to come down on Friday. This drove me crazy because they didn't leave until 1 or 2 in the afternoon; I was hoping they were going to leave much earlier and I could take a half-day and spend the entire afternoon with them. They kept going back and forth and they were concerned about what to do with the dogs. Finally, my dad called me after I got back from lunch, and he said they were going to be leaving soon. Also, this is their first time driving down by themselves without my brother.

We ran out and picked them up some Skyline Chili to eat once they got here and got them settled in. On Christmas Eve morning, Francisco presented me with this lovely pressie. Generally, I'm the one who's made the family ornaments, so this is the first one he's made for me - glad to see I'm the top marshmallow lol!

We played several games throughout the day, including Buzzword, Quelf, Apples-to-Apples, Whoonu, etc.

Francisco prepared us a delicious spread of roasted vegetables, macaroni and cheese, roast, green bean casserole, rolls, and creamed corn.

Then we set up the camera to get some test shots for a group photo, so this is me being a goof with a cat on my head, haha.

Poor Colby lol

My parents headed back around 4:00, so Francisco and I exchanged one more present for the night after they left.  Francisco got me a Tarte foundation brush, and I got him a custom-made puzzle commemorating our trip to the UK and Ireland. I think he liked it!