Today, O Best Beloved, I turn 25. That makes me an old fart to some of you (I still remember high school!) and a young upstart to others. But it makes me a year older. There's a text message on my phone from my daddy, who sent me one yesterday as well, wishing me first Merry Christmas, then Happy Birthday. He didn't want to wake me up if I was sleeping by calling.

Yesterday, we went to Angel's parent's for Christmas and saw all his brothers and sisters. kokitsune (incidentally, Cori, what does that mean?) got us a set of dining room chairs from the cafe she worked at that's closing, so we have ice-cream-shop chairs for the dining room. We could only bring three of the six home in the trunk, due to also having gotten the Lord of the Rings Monopoly game, a "fix-it-yourself" book, and two lamps for my birthday, complete with shades.
No sooner had we gotten home (it's a 3-hour drive) than my little sister Chelly called. "Can you come over to Dad's? Like nowish?" We went, across town, to the huge old house where my father rattles around with two cats, a dog, and an occasional child ever since my stepmother moved out and we started to grow up. I'm sorry, Peter Pan.
All of the kids were there: Me (and Angel and Quinby); Michelly who's starting her first senior year of college and will have 198 credit hours of 120 required when she finishes her second, who works and plays with so much enthusiasm and drive that she makes me an underachiever; my baby sister Erin and her boyfriend Dan, who've found a house of their own to rent and are expecting a baby of their own in February; my little brother Paul, who's going to get a job soon and promises presents when he's earning real money. We turned the couch around to face the little fake Christmas tree that just got put up, because otherwise the cats try to climb it and it falls over, pulled the palisade of boxes back that had been protecting the presents from the animals, and passed out gifts from each other, from my Auntie Ann the aging hippie - who works as a freelance editor in California when she feels the need to work, and spends the rest of the time roaming around staying eternally young - from Dad, who wasn't sure what to do about me having posted my Christmas List where everyone could see. He hates duplicating presents, so I'm to tell him what I didn't get, after all the giving is over. But he gave us all movie tickets, and he took pictures in front of the tree, and he oohed and ahhed over what we'd gotten him, and he looked at us all and said "The best present I could have gotten was to have you all here." And I almost cried, O Best Beloved. Words cannot express how lucky I am - how glad and joyful and blessed I am - to have a family that's so beautiful as mine is. Maybe I'll post a picture of all of us later.

But now we're going to go shopping for groceries so we can make dinner for people. Anyone in the Fort Wayne area is welcome to a semi-impromptu birthday party for me this evening, starting sometime in the afternoon. We're going to have a Christmasy leftovers dinner, involving barbecued ham made from the frozen leftovers from Thanksgiving, and green bean casserole, and pie and cake and ice cream. And we'll play games or watch movies and hand out gifts to everyone in hobbit-fashion, so y'all stop in at least. And if I can figure out when the most people can be here, that's when we'll have dinner.
Lunch, O Best Beloved, will be just me and Angel, and we're going to go have Japanese. I love my man.

Edit: Stocking stuffers included an Ayashi no Ceres manga, a tiny stuffed Chii, a stuffed snowman, new socks, and a bunch of chocolate. And Angel helped me clean out a bunch of junk in the family room. What more could I want for Christmas?

now feeling:: touched