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Christmas post.
Overall, then we had a lovely Christmas. We always do it in stages. Christmas Eve we are usually just us 5, more-or-less following my Scandinavian (Danish) traditions & we do the present thing from us and my side of the family. Christmas morning the girls get stockings (from 'Santa') and then, after mass, we go round to my in-laws for Christmas #2 with Darcy's family.
Usually Darcy goes to midnight mass (as he's in the choir) but this year wasn't feeling up to it, so we all went on Christmas Day. And none of us thought to think to check the time, just defaulting to 'Mass is always at 11' which is true on Sundays. But not, as it turns out, Christmas.
We arrived a few minutes past 11 (don't get me started on how we're always late, by now I've basically given up on ever making them be on time), and though 'Hang on, why does it look like everyone's leaving? Wait... Was mass at 10???'
Yes. Yes it was.
(Although, as Miss M remarked - we'd be the family that always goes to church - except for Christmas!)
Not that we were the only ones to have gotten the time wrong, we were a nice little handful.
And then our parish priests displayed the mostest Christmas spirit ever, and said mass just for us. <3 We were about 20, maybe, and it was just the loveliest mass ever. :)
Then there was family time, which was also great. As we don't exactly have a lot of money at the moment, we went for cheap & cheerful when it came to all the nephews & nieces - they're all young, so we bought a load of chocolate Santas. As it turned out, this was a brilliant idea. Three days later, littlest niece STILL thinks her chocolate Santa was her best present!
We watched Doctor Who (of course) which was utterly delightful, and then Strictly, which proved that however cheesy you thought Doctor Who was, Strictly could outdo it within the first five minutes.
We had to go back to the inlaws both Boxing Day, and the day after, to help eat left overs! (Not that this was a chore in any way. Love my inlaws.)
I decided to skip Dickensian (there's what, 20 episodes???), but And Then There Were None looked at treat, and it was.Say what you will about Agatha Christie, she writes good female characters. And dayum, Aidan Turner as the designated eye candy did not go unnoticed. Of course he's also an excellent actor, but if the script calls for him to drape himself in doorways, with only a very low-slung towel around his hips, I'm not going to complain. General verdict: BBC Christmas telly at its finest. Hereby recommended.
Oh and my mother-in-law got the 'board' game of Countdown for Christmas, which people of course played. The Cherub's main contributions: 1) When having it explained how - if there was an 'S' you could add it to the end of a word to make it longer, and get a higher score that way - she scanned the available letters, and happily declared: 'Twats!' (*sigh*) 2) Knowing full well that you can only make a single word, she still made 'DOG IN KOMA'. I think they gave her the points out of amusement.
The most 'interesting' Christmas present - well the only one I'm going to talk about - is the kitchen tap. Our kitchen tap has been dripping for... far longer than I care to think about, but taps aren't cheap, so we asked for one for Christmas. And a few days ago Darcy tackled the whole thing (very complicated, there were also issues with the stop tap etc. etc.) - and it was a great success. Kitchen has been improved just generally (various things that needed fixing) and no more drips. The only one that's not happy is... the cat.
See, a dripping tap is basically like a hamster water bottle, but for a cat. It was his own private drinking fountain, and now, all of a sudden, it's GONE. He spent a day or so jumping up onto the worktop, trying to get his head around the new tap, trying to get water out of it, but nothing happened. Result: He's sulking. Like, properly, seriously genuinely sulking. It's HILARIOUS. If he were a teenager he'd be locked up in his room listening to My Chemical Romance and dying his hair black, occasionally shouting about how we all HATE him! Since he can't do that, he just mopes, continually, sitting curled up in awkward spots and feeling sorry for himself.
Otherwise we've slowly been catching up on The Bridge (2 episodes left! If you spoil me, I will never talk to you again!) and oh god, Saga keeps breaking my heart. And it's so well written, I can't even.
This afternoon, however, we watched The Age of Ultron. There were some funny lines, and a LOT of fighting. (I think I may have had my fill of superhero movies. SO MUCH FIGHTING... It gets so dull.) The Romanoff stuff was - if possible - even more offensive than I'd gathered beforehand. Seriously Joss? You thought THAT was an acceptable line? Anyway. We shall be watching Mad Max: Fury Road tonight. I think that'll be a nice palate cleaner.
Oh, not sure if I ever mentioned it, but I ADORED Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We watched it the weekend before Christmas.
What else? Looking forward to Sherlock tomorrow, obviously. There's probably more, but one of Darcy's friends has come over for New Year's so I should probably go be sociable.
Wishing you all the best for 2016!!! Dunno what I'd do without you. I'm terrible at commenting, and even worse at writing about my own life, so I hope this makes up for things a little... ♥
Usually Darcy goes to midnight mass (as he's in the choir) but this year wasn't feeling up to it, so we all went on Christmas Day. And none of us thought to think to check the time, just defaulting to 'Mass is always at 11' which is true on Sundays. But not, as it turns out, Christmas.
We arrived a few minutes past 11 (don't get me started on how we're always late, by now I've basically given up on ever making them be on time), and though 'Hang on, why does it look like everyone's leaving? Wait... Was mass at 10???'
Yes. Yes it was.
(Although, as Miss M remarked - we'd be the family that always goes to church - except for Christmas!)
Not that we were the only ones to have gotten the time wrong, we were a nice little handful.
And then our parish priests displayed the mostest Christmas spirit ever, and said mass just for us. <3 We were about 20, maybe, and it was just the loveliest mass ever. :)
Then there was family time, which was also great. As we don't exactly have a lot of money at the moment, we went for cheap & cheerful when it came to all the nephews & nieces - they're all young, so we bought a load of chocolate Santas. As it turned out, this was a brilliant idea. Three days later, littlest niece STILL thinks her chocolate Santa was her best present!
We watched Doctor Who (of course) which was utterly delightful, and then Strictly, which proved that however cheesy you thought Doctor Who was, Strictly could outdo it within the first five minutes.
We had to go back to the inlaws both Boxing Day, and the day after, to help eat left overs! (Not that this was a chore in any way. Love my inlaws.)
I decided to skip Dickensian (there's what, 20 episodes???), but And Then There Were None looked at treat, and it was.
Oh and my mother-in-law got the 'board' game of Countdown for Christmas, which people of course played. The Cherub's main contributions: 1) When having it explained how - if there was an 'S' you could add it to the end of a word to make it longer, and get a higher score that way - she scanned the available letters, and happily declared: 'Twats!' (*sigh*) 2) Knowing full well that you can only make a single word, she still made 'DOG IN KOMA'. I think they gave her the points out of amusement.
The most 'interesting' Christmas present - well the only one I'm going to talk about - is the kitchen tap. Our kitchen tap has been dripping for... far longer than I care to think about, but taps aren't cheap, so we asked for one for Christmas. And a few days ago Darcy tackled the whole thing (very complicated, there were also issues with the stop tap etc. etc.) - and it was a great success. Kitchen has been improved just generally (various things that needed fixing) and no more drips. The only one that's not happy is... the cat.
See, a dripping tap is basically like a hamster water bottle, but for a cat. It was his own private drinking fountain, and now, all of a sudden, it's GONE. He spent a day or so jumping up onto the worktop, trying to get his head around the new tap, trying to get water out of it, but nothing happened. Result: He's sulking. Like, properly, seriously genuinely sulking. It's HILARIOUS. If he were a teenager he'd be locked up in his room listening to My Chemical Romance and dying his hair black, occasionally shouting about how we all HATE him! Since he can't do that, he just mopes, continually, sitting curled up in awkward spots and feeling sorry for himself.
Otherwise we've slowly been catching up on The Bridge (2 episodes left! If you spoil me, I will never talk to you again!) and oh god, Saga keeps breaking my heart. And it's so well written, I can't even.
This afternoon, however, we watched The Age of Ultron. There were some funny lines, and a LOT of fighting. (I think I may have had my fill of superhero movies. SO MUCH FIGHTING... It gets so dull.) The Romanoff stuff was - if possible - even more offensive than I'd gathered beforehand. Seriously Joss? You thought THAT was an acceptable line? Anyway. We shall be watching Mad Max: Fury Road tonight. I think that'll be a nice palate cleaner.
Oh, not sure if I ever mentioned it, but I ADORED Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We watched it the weekend before Christmas.
What else? Looking forward to Sherlock tomorrow, obviously. There's probably more, but one of Darcy's friends has come over for New Year's so I should probably go be sociable.
Wishing you all the best for 2016!!! Dunno what I'd do without you. I'm terrible at commenting, and even worse at writing about my own life, so I hope this makes up for things a little... ♥
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Happy New Year
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Happy New Year to you too! :)
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Glad you had a good Christmas!
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I remember reading your post about it back then, and wondered how it actually played out... And I couldn't believe that it was so completely blunt. Could no one see the problems????
Also Happy New Year!!! ♥
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Merry Christmas again <3
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And a Happy New Year! <3
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I enjoyed Doctor Who too, and I loved Star Wars, and I am so ready for Sherlock <3
Happy New Year!
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Happy new Year!
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Which brings up the question: what physical fight scenes *have* you liked? I have to say there are some Buffy the Vampire Slayer fights I really enjoyed, perhaps most iconically the Buffy/Angel fight at the end of Season 2.
I am also looking forward to Sherlock! Although I am frustrated that BBC America sticks commercials in everything... I have only watched Sherlock before through Netflix and I worry that having commercials will diminish the experience.
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Hmmm. I dunno. As in, I've never thought of it. Buffy/Angel yes, most definitely. I think I dislike them when they're pointless or too long. Which is the issue with superhero movies. We KNOW that the heroes will defeat the bad guy, so spending ten minutes watching them beat up his minions feels like stalling... F.ex. I also watched Mad Max: Fury Road the other day, and LOVED it. It's like 2 hours of pure action, but it's gorgeous. Also Kingsman, which is rather silly (but in a good way), and is aware how ridiculous the fighting is, and it over the top.
Mostly though, then why does saving the world mean punching so many people? /rhetorical question
I have only watched Sherlock before through Netflix and I worry that having commercials will diminish the experience.
:( I hope you found a way to watch it advert free. I'd hate to think what it'd be like all chopped up...
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Yeah, let me see people save the world through creativity and cleverness any day. :)
I hope you found a way to watch it advert free.
I did! It was on PBS, not BBC America - the latter has commercials, but the former doesn't. The stream did give out a couple times, which was frustrating, but luckily not during any particularly tense bits.
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Give me 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow' any day! ;) (Except for fights like Buffy & Angelus, obviously.)
I did! It was on PBS, not BBC America
Yay! It's worth watching properly.
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LMAO at your cat's sulking.
Happy New Year! Hope 2016 is great for you and your family!
Stacey
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We had a lovely Christmas, yes, and are fortunate with out priests. <3
And the cat has cheered up a little by now...
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Glad your cat is starting to get over it. :)
Stacey
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Stacey
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Happy New Year to you and yours, Elisi.
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I think I love your priests! How awesome is that?!?! That is just....wonderful! I hope they enjoyed doing that extra service for you all. Bless them.
Sounds like you had a marvelous Christmas. As it should be.
(and chocolate Santas ARE the best prezzies ever! And so are boxes. And wrapping paper. :D)
*HUGS*
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Yes, they liked the quiet service too. I think it's just nice to have a quiet moment, no matter what job you do. :)
Sounds like you had a marvelous Christmas. As it should be.
Hope yours was good too! You've certainly seemed cheerful in recent posts.
(and chocolate Santas ARE the best prezzies ever! And so are boxes. And wrapping paper. :D)
Totally. Ordinary presents are over rated.
And yay for Sherlock!
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And he's just about gotten over himself... ;)
Happy New Year to you too! <3
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Awww, yay! That was lovely of them.
Loved The Force Awakens. LOVED IT.
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I think it was my favourite Christmas service ever. :)
Loved The Force Awakens. LOVED IT.
We want to see it again, BUT SUCH EXPENSIVE! /o\
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♥
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And yes, our cat is his very own entertainment - he's just about stopped sulking now, although we are considering maybe getting him a hamster bottle...
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