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Location: Home.
Listening: Die Hard in the background.

Christmas is here, with a vengeance.

Last night, Williams drove down from LA for dinner and a movie with Peter and I. We took him to Sushi Saurus (our second time in less than a week--V-8 roll good) and then to a late show of Ocean's 11, which was entertaining, but perhaps not as involving as I would have liked. Lots of little technical details left out in favor of happy coincidence, but it was slickly produced and the chemistry between Clooney and Pitt was wonderful. A fun little film. Still waiting to see Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Looking forward to both.

Gave Williams his present at the movie theatre before dinner. After much deliberation, I ended up giving him a Handspring Visor Deluxe in graphite. He loved it. I loved that he was so surprised--the best part of gift-giving, to me, is that look on the recipient's face the first moment they realize what they've gotten. It was wonderful for both of us.

After the movie, we took Williams midnight shopping at Ralph's, where we got tons of soda and other little things I needed for the dinner tomorrow night--mainly spices and oranges. We then headed back to 1260.

Austin called us on our way home and joined us at the house, bearing a burger and several orders of chili fries from Fatburger. We broke out the food, finished trimming the tree (it's full of silver balls, cards, and little twinkling lights), and hit Peter's Sega Dreamcast for all it was worth. First, round-robin on Virtua Fighter and then the boys played Powerstone while I napped. When I woke at 10, they had still not slept and were watching MTV. I made blueberry muffins and then studded a few oranges with cloves for pomanders while they played with LEGO and watched Absolutely Fabulous on DVD. Austin caught a nap for a few hours, Peter eventually took off for his nap, and Williams and Austin and I drove down to South Coast Plaza for some last-minute shopping.

At South Coast, I grabbed socks, some books ("Lord of the Rings", a biography of the man who first deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the prequel to "The Dark Knight Returns" for Peter), mulling spices and a new scrub-brush for dishes (I live on the edge). Austin surprised me by buying my Christmas presents--a gorgeous 10 qt. stainless steel stock pot and cookie cutters (hooray! I've been trying to find some forever). He also bought Williams' present--lovely new dress shoes that look really smart. I'm still tracking Austin's present via UPS--it should arrive by tomorrow *sigh*.

We're home now. The boys are watching Die Hard (a classic Christmas film), and I'm mulling cider in my new stock pot with my new spices, sliced oranges, and cinnamon sticks. Tomorrow, I finish wrapping presents, string some popcorn with cranberries that I bought a few weeks ago, finish Christmas cards (a little late, but hey), make gingerbread cookies with my new cookie cutters and, of course, cook Christmas dinner (which my family has always had on Christmas Eve). I'm finally getting into the Christmas spirit after moping for the past few weeks and it feels good. The tree is beautiful (we're taking lots of pictures and I'll see about posting some this next week), presents are hidden in the house, cards from family and friends have arrived (as well as two bookmarks that Jenn made for us--thanks Jenn and Kenny!), and I have my friends gathered in the den. Doesn't really get much better.

Last year, when Peter and I were compelled to catch flights to opposite ends of the country days after moving in together, we decided to have Christmas in our own house this year. Both of us had endured years of tension-filled bustling for Christmases with our respective families for years and, while we knew we would miss them, we wanted to take some time and have our own holiday celebration for a change. So far, it's going beautifully. We've each spoken to our families often this week, their presents are under the tree, and they are with us in spirit. We're together, in our own home, celebrating in our own way, and, if the New Year is half as good as Christmas is turning out to be, 2002 will be a brilliant year.

Merry Christmas, y'all.