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Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

The Long Awaited Christmas Part 2

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(Edit: sorry. Had the urge to post again)
Oh alright. But don’t get your hopes up. Some things are hazy.
Some random things to mention first.
I was rather insistent that we get a TV guide for Christmas so we’d know what was on when without having to look it up online. That way if there was anything we really wanted to see we could stack our viewing. Good thing too. Because I was able to clearly cross out anything that was on at the same time as MUST SEE things. I was pleased to see both episodes of The Colour of Magic and The Hogfather. I’ve been curious about the Diskworld series but never got into it. Someone I used to know was a fan. By someone I mean my ex-friend Tom.
I found them very fun to watch and it’s made me consider reading the books.

Also. I wondered what to do with the giblets of the turkey. I remembered mum telling me that she’d put them out for the cats to eat (back when we had cats) but apparently I had that mixed up with something else. A couple of days after Christmas I looked up whether it was safe to feed them to animals and decided to dump them out in the garden in the hopes that the foxes would pick them up. I figured they’d be a valuable meal to cold and hungry foxes. They were completely gone the next day so something took them.

I can’t remember. Did I tell you last time that I finally had a sprout? Turns out they’re actually not so bad. But I do think that mum has learnt to prepare them a bit differently since my childhood.

I’m pretty sure I told you about the log I made. (If you laugh I have no respect for you. Well. Maybe a little bit, you’re only human after all).

Oh. Also this year’s tree was named Bruce, I think. Bruce the spruce. Even though we always get a Nordmann fir actually. That’s why last year’s tree was Norman. I think that’s how it was anyway. I can’t remember so well now. I know one year we had a Norman.

For secret Santa I had my older male cousin again. That’s two years running. I don’t mind but I feel sorry for him. I always worry so much about what to get for secret Santa so I get a few little things in case the one big thing isn’t well received. I’d like him to have some more variety with his secret Santa, maybe someone who knows him better and can get him something they know he’d like.
I think I got him big box of Maltesers (if he doesn’t like them he can give them to the kids, surely that’d still make him happy), a football keychain and some paperclips shaped like the first letter of his name, just for fun.
Mum had my older female cousin and got her an adult colouring book and some pencils. It’s actually ironically funny because that cousin had gotten an adult colouring book for a friend. So it all came together in a fun serendipitous way. I’m grinning because I got to type a long and not often used word. I don’t think I’ve ever said it before.
Oh. And for My secret Santa I got a really cool raven artwork calendar. I've cut out the pictures and stuck them on my walls. I did the same thing with some old dragon calendars I found last year, did I mention that before?
And mum got a cute husky cushion.

So. My aunt was having her kitchen done. She’s had the exact same kitchen for as long as I can remember so it’ll be weird going there when it’s done. Incidentally I’ve been there since (it wasn’t fully completed yet) so I’ve had a little transition time.
She mentioned getting it done or wanting to get it done at the October thing but I’d forgotten all about that.
Well. It wasn’t ready for Christmas. But we were still going to have a thing. My older female cousin offered up her house of the occasion. Can you believe that I’ve only now decided to refer to my cousins in this way to save confusion? How am I doing so far?

This made me incredibly anxious. Unnecessarily so. New locations, even with people I know, make me very uncomfortable. I didn’t know how seating would be arranged or where and how food would be served. How much further than my aunt’s would it be? How tight it would be or where to find the bathroom. If unfamiliar houses make me uncomfortable then unfamiliar bathrooms are even worse. I managed without needing the bathroom, so I have no idea what the house looks like upstairs. I had no reason to go there.
We were about an hour late but this was not criticised. In fact, we were told we were on time. Were they being polite or had they told us an hour earlier so we’d be on time? I’m not sure to be pleased or insulted and by how much at either idea. I’m not dwelling on it and it doesn’t matter.
I was able to settle in well enough and quite quickly so that was good.
Rosie and their two younger dogs were there. If need be I’ll just call them boy dog and girl dog. I called them both dog while I was there anyway.

I was pleased to see my younger female cousin and her much expanded stomach. There’s a tiny human forming in there and she’s such a skinny person that the bump is very noticeable. Just seeing it made me light up, mainly because I worried that it was possible something could have happened to the child. Pregnancy at any stage can be fraught. I get paranoid about things very easily, as you well know. They want to be surprised by the gender but she’s adamant that if it’s a girl she doesn’t want to raise a “girly girl”. I object to this but only in so much as if the child wants to be “girly” I hope she’ll allow it. Otherwise, if the child is happy being “un-girly” then I have no objections at all. For now, I addressed the bump as Tiny Human. But I’m wondering if Tora will suit as a nickname. It means tiger. I think it would suit any child she’d have. But that’s not to be decided until I hear that the child has been born and/or meet it. For now, Tiny Human is fine and accurate. Not sure why I called it that. I guess it’s because they look like aliens in the womb and it’s amazing to think that there’s a tiny human being in there. Hence Tiny Human.

I was also pleased to see the children. Mainly because I came bearing gifts for them. Since I used to love books so much (I still do but I never read any anymore, it’s sad really) I like getting them books. I feel that books are important for development so around Christmas time I check out the books, since we got them books last year. There seems to be a theme with the books I get. Last year......when I say last year I’m writing this as if I were still in 2015, just so you know, it makes it easier for me to follow. By last year I actually mean Christmas 2014, just in case I was becoming confusing. You probably already figured that out.
Last year I we got them (I say we. I picked them out, sought mum’s opinion, though it didn’t matter that much to me, and she paid for them during out weekly shop) One about an owl afraid of the dark. That was actually mum’s choice for the girl because I wanted the get the boy The Dinosaur That Pooed a Planet. Or who. Can’t be bothered to check. But in case they didn’t like the book we got one that also came with a dinosaur toy. So if we got the boy one we’d have to get the girl one too. So mum picked the owl. Before we gave them to the kid’s I’d opened them carefully, read through both and put them back in the box. The dinosaur one was much more fun because it had little point. The owl one was trying to encourage a thought and/or feeling (not being scared of the dark).

This year, as I mentioned, I followed a similar theme. This year I got a book about Santa’s farting reindeer for the boy and Mog’s Christmas for the girl. I had Mog in mind because, although I don’t remember ever reading a Mog book myself, the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert was about Mog, to celebrate and anniversary of Mog and part of a campaign to promote children’s literacy. Now. We got ours in Tesco. Apparently Sainsbury’s had a special one that, I guess, was the story from the advert and buying it donated to the campaign. But still. This was a different Christmas story to the one in the advert. So that was good. If you don’t know, Mog is a cat.
I also planned to give the kids my leftover M&M’s and Skittles from Halloween but I forgot to bring them. Which their mother was probably grateful for. I also took them my Play-Doh that I’d had for a year or so but rarely played with. It was still good. Yes. I know I’m an adult and Play-Doh is for children. I’d actually taken it to last Easter to give it to them along with a chocolate bunny each, but they hadn’t been there then.
I asked the first one nearest to me which colour they wanted. It was the girl and the choice was between green and blue. She picked blue. So I gave the green to the boy. They seemed pretty pleased but couldn’t play with them there and then. The boy went to show his grandmother (my cousin’s wife) and she seemed more pleased with it than he did. It seems the smell of Play-Doh is nostalgic for her. Me too. Seems I’m not so strange after all.

Of course, the kids didn’t read the books there and then and they just ended up laying around. I’m okay with that. But I’m not okay with the fact that, at one point, I found Mog in the kitchen and someone had put a dish of nibbles on top of it as if it were a placemat. When no one was in the kitchen I slipped it out and put it on a chair, in a much more noticeable position. Pretty determined that this stuff has to at least go home with the kids. What happens to is after that is out of sight out of mind for me.

Mum had wrapped the books while I gave the dog a quick walk before we left and I put the tags on. For a moment there was some confusion about which book was which and I was determined they go to their intended child but it didn’t really matter. I’m sure they boy would’ve had the same reaction to the Mog book and the girl to the farting reindeer. I’d gotten a cheap bag of bows and decided to put one on each. I think the boy had red and the girl silver. It was cute because later on I noticed the boy wearing the bow stuck to his chest like a badge. That made me smile. He spent some time playing with a little toy glider from a cracker and I offered pretend points for each flight. At one point it crashed and apparently all the people died, but I didn’t detract too many points because I decided the pilot survived.

I spent some of my time keeping an eye on the dogs, applying some commands and shooing them off of furniture. I figured, even though they were usually allowed on the furniture, I wouldn’t allow it. Well, there were a lot of people in the house and at some point they’d all need a seat. So in my opinion the dogs should only jump up when invited. I spent a little time training the dogs.
Rosie is still untrained and getting old now. She shuffles along like a poor old thing, especially next to two young and lively dogs, but she’s okay. The two younger ones understand and obey the basic commands but aren’t so patient. Well. There’s two of them so they compete and they’re still young.
The girl saw me training them and tried to get me to train her like a dog. I wasn’t so happy doing that but she seemed to have fun pretending to be a dog. She’d growl and I pretended she was a frightening beast and that if you looked her in the eyes you’d turn to stone (like a gorgon or a basilisk, hence my dubbing her the basilisk eyed beast) I told a few of the passing adults of the terrifying beast and they played along while they were there. She seemed to have fun with it, so that’s nice.
I managed to convince they boy that I have magical powers but came unstuck when he wanted me to do magic. I had to come up with excuses for why I couldn’t teleport things. He got distracted enough to forget eventually.
Anyone familiar with the catchy but annoying children’s toy the Bop it?
Well. One of those was lying around, still in the packaging. I had one once but it was the original with three actions. This was a later model with five. So some of the grown up started playing it in the kitchen and the boy joined in too. This was how I first convinced him of my powers. He was competing against and adult, who was winning, and for fun I asked if I should use my powers to make him lose. I can’t remember which adult, but it was one of the guys. The boy agreed that I should. I’d actually planned to distract the player or maybe poke him to make him lose quicker but lost my nerve to do so and just held out my hands as if casting an unseen spell. It wouldn’t be long before he just lost anyway, and he did. After that the boy was convinced of my powers and wanted me to make someone else lose.
At one point I think he asked me if I could turn something into something else. I told him I couldn’t do…..I couldn’t remember the word I was thinking of. I knew it began with a T. I ended up saying transmogrification, a word I’m not confident saying and too much for the kid to understand. The word I meant to say was actually transmutation because I was thinking of Full Metal Alchemist but, in retrospect, that would’ve gone over his head too. They’re basically the same thing anyway.

After the children had gone home the adults all started a chain game of Bop it. It had since come out of the box as the owner had been identified. It was my older female cousin’s. They’d brought it downstairs in case anyone wanted to play it. That went on for a while.

That’s about all I can remember and/or feel is worth writing up.
Oh. Hang on. At one point it was me, my pregnant cousin, her boyfriend and my older female cousin’s boyfriend in the kitchen and someone farted. I didn’t hear it but the guys made a big deal about it. Then it spread like a noxious, invisible fog through the room. Neither guy claimed ownership so blamed it on the pregnant woman, who denied it. For some reason, and I still don’t know why save for the fact that I have the mentality of a child, I found this incredibly funny and burst into uncontrollable laughter. I know it wasn’t me because I’d only just come into the room. I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Well. Did it meet your expectations? I hope I didn’t disappoint.

Bluebiird out.

Updated 04-17-2016 at 04:36 AM by Bluebiird

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Comments

  1. qimissung's Avatar
    I remember when you made the log. I enjoyed that.

    This Christmas sounds fun. I like the way you interact with the kids and the dogs. And your ending: priceless.