Merry Christmas to all. It’s been a pretty good year if we don’t take the house into consideration. The house has been very bad. Despite giving it a new roof and a new coat of paint in January, it rebelled and flooded the entire downstairs in March. We’d forgiven it until the a/c and heat finally gave up the ghost last month. Granted that stuff was 23 years old, but how much can one household take? You know it’s bad when you have the appraiser for the mortgage refinance scheduled to show up at 10am the day after Xmas. I shouldn’t say it, but the only thing left to cause trouble is the water heater. We fully expect it to explode and take the garage with it before Valentine’s Day.
As for Xmas itself, it was a very Stone Xmas for me. My sister snagged me a jacket for my birthday along with a tasting glass from the 9th anniversary celebration and a few bottles of the 9th anniversary brew. She followed that up with a work shirt, t-shirt, and 9th anniversary pint glass for Xmas. I also scored the Thin Man DVD box set from The Wife, the Invader Zim DVD House box and Star Wars Battlefront II for PS2 from my brother-in-law.
Highlights for the rest of the family were a new Haro bike for The Boy, a Henckels 7″ Santoku knife and Will Shortz Sudoku puzzle book for The Wife and a Leapster for both kids. I continued buying the Fantagraphics Peanuts 2-book sets for my father. He’s getting those for Xmas for the next 10 years until they release them all (25 books at 2 per year).
All in all, a lot to be thankful for. Let’s hope Santa brings us a high appraisal as a belated Xmas gift.