What a whirlwind of a Winter Break! Working for a school district, I am able to take advantage of time off during breaks. I typically take Thanksgiving Week and Winter Break totally off and then work some of the other breaks (Ski Week in February and Spring Break). It's nice because we get holidays for each of these, so I don''t have to use a lot of vacation time. Since I have 8 rollback days (to go along with my additional salary rollback this fiscal year), I used them for both breaks.
I started the revelry early...my birthday was on the 15th of December, which consisted of lunch with a coworker, then dinner with D, Mom and Meema. The next day after work, I mentioned to D that I had seen a car online at Lexus San Diego and could we go look at it that weekend. He suggested that we just stop by on our way home. I was against this since we had so much to do that evening (shopping for gifts for work, making potluck dishes and other stuff to be done for the next day...we were kind of last minute!), but we stopped anyway. Less than 2 hours, we drove away with a 2007 Toyota 4Runner for me! I drove it home the back way (still having issues with the freeway)...I love it and got such a great deal (will post pictures soon)! We still made it through all our errands and made it to bed around 1:00 a.m. The next day was my last day of work...the Nastys gave small gifts, but I did not give them anything. I had a tiny twang of sadness and guilt, but decided that why would I give a gift to someone who treats me like garbage all year! I passed on our work party due to my driving situation...after an almost hour+ drive home, D and I crashed until the morning (woke up at 11:30, to change into pajamas).
The next day, we ran around (I drove to the dealer via the freeway!) and did some of our Secret Santa shopping. That night, we went to Ruth's Chris for my birthday dinner. Due to family dynamics, it was a little uncomfortable.
The week before Christmas was busy...I spent a lot of time cleaning up around home and relaxing. We braved the rain one night to pick up groceries for our Christmas Eve hosting feast. Which all led up to our 3 day Christmas extravaganza!
Christmas Eve: D and I host this event...we've been doing it for close to 5 years. The family plus a new friend joined us that evening. On the menu, antipasto platter (salami, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, marinated mushrooms), mini caprese salad (using grape tomatoes and mozzarella balls), Christmas pasta (Rachael Ray's recipe) with angel hair, Italian sausages, and garlic bread. I made a brown sugar bundt cake, but no one ate dessert. I make treat bags/boxes every year for people to take home - this year's included graham cracker toffee and rolo pecan pretzel bits. We all hung out and had a nice evening! D and I concluded it by watching Christmas Eve mass from the Vatican.
Christmas Day: The morning was mellow. In the afternoon, D, our friend and I headed to our family friends', the Belmains. Our families have long standing relationships dating back to my great-grandmother at age 18. They always host a dinner. We had a nice day filled with friends, family and good food.
Day After Christmas: Uncle (now retired) Banking Mogul and family decided to host since they did not participate in the Belmain dinner. The catch...Mom did most of the cooking at their place! They have a beautiful galley kitchen in the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky, but are culinary challenged! We had a turkey dinner with the fixings. We did our Secret Santa exchange. Since our friend has no family locally, we all got him gifts from "Santa". He was genuinely surprised and touched. D got a really nice SD Padres pullover that he wanted. (I helped his Secret Santa pick it out). I got nice baking sheets and cookie cutters from mine. When we got home, we were trying to watch a movie when we hear arguing. One of our neighbors was fighting with her live-in...complete with her throwing his stuff off the stairs at him and calling him every expletive known to man! After a back and forth argument for close to 2 hours, SDPD came to see what was going on. And, much to my surprise, he is back and they look so happy..ugh, who needs that much drama in their life?!?
The week after Christmas was spent partially entertaining Aspiring NY Banker. We also did our share of stimulating the economy. D had his exit interview at his job...he starts his new one on Monday. We also started getting more organized...one of our goals in 2011!
It's been a great break...happy new year!
