Fabulous loafing holiday with feasting and loot

mmmm, spats!
Originally uploaded by Liz.

Someone was working, but it wasn't me. I laid around playing board games and eating tons of great food cooked by other people. My brother in law was the master chef today...

So, messing with computers, looking at books, movies, and just hanging around. It was so nice. And also yet another day of being around people who appreciate each other and how nice things can be.

Plus I'm in a 100% great mood because not only did Minnie make me the flowered spats, which fit my boots perfectly... there is also a great pink and black fleece hat with pompoms. And as I was walking out the door I was like... "Um lend me some of this book series? That our mom just got you for christmas?" and she was like "NO WAY are you insane? I want to read them" and then I pointed out that she'll be down here in 2 days and I'll have finished them by then. So now I have temporary custody of the first 6 books of some series by Marion Chesney... "Refining Felicity" and more extremely awful looking regencies. Hahaha, I'm off to take a midnight bath and rip through the first one. I have the extra pleasant feeling of having gotten away with something outrageous.

Moomin and I tested out a Heroscape combat and I think it was good for him to see how you can learn the rules as you go, even when they're too confusing to understand right away. Then we tried a more complex setup. And then Rook joined in and we had a massive battle! I can see it will be fun to play around with... It's Warhamster Jr.!

I was all remembering how insane I was at around Moomin's age to have anyone at all play Risk with me. & then how awesome it was a bit later when my dad would play Panzerblitz or that sort of game with me.

Rook, Moomin, Minnie, and I also played the Dragonology board game, which was lovely in design but extremely boring to play and not much strategy; a bit like "Sorry" with nicer props. In theory also you might learn a few things about a world map. It is also one of my pet peeves of games when they are so overdesigned and snotty that they don't put an explanation on the card of what the card does, even when it would be like 1 sentence. Instead you have to read and reread the rules until you remember about steamboats vs. hot air balloons, or the technicalities of using the Master Claw card. I can picture some designer saying that the text would make the card look ugly or too cluttered. Anyway, it has all the trappings of a good new-style or german-style game, but without the actual thought or interestingness, alas. Better to play zum kuk kuk or Lost Cities or Kahuna. Moomin liked it though, and he especially liked the little figurines of the dragons and dragonologists.

I can't even remember a nicer christmas. It was actually relaxing. Next year maybe we'll host and I'll have to haul ass on the cooking and cleaning and everything, and Minnie and Vim will have a squalling young sprog maybe crawling all over the place and vomiting on my couch, and I hope it'll be as nice for them as it was for us today.

Peanut was especially cute dancing around on the big red rug, and locking herself in the bathroom though that made me go crazy with worry... two and going "i'm going to lock all the grownups out so they can't open the door!" yes, in that complex of a sentence. Ha! She knew how to unlock it but it still freaked me out; though, I imagined, if there were some freak accident and she hit her head and passed out on the floor in there, Vim would easily just cut a hole in the wall, because he's handy like that, and anyway, I was being neurotic so it didn't matter. She was awfully sweet. She seemed to like the remote control snake that Moomin got for her.

We all wore our new pom pom hats made by Minnie as if we had just joined a cult of silly hats.

Best quote of the day: Moomin at dinner, giggling, incredulous, saying during a lull in conversation, "Did you just say "Merry Fucking Christmas?!!!" I forget who had said it. Awesome! Hahahah! There's no way around it since I swear all the time without thinking. As long as he realizes not to cuss in school or you get in trouble, and not to call people names.

Comments

[justkristin]

Merry fucking Xmas, indeed, Moomin!

Badge, we still on for a bit of coffee or tea or something?

[owlmonkey]

hey, i used to love panzerblitz and games like that. haven't thought about them in ages. thanks for that. :)

[Jenny]

Sounds like a fantastic holiday!

[qp]

totally unrelated but you were in my dream last night. There was a wedding, and Jay-Z and Queen Latifah and Biggie Smalls (not dead, apparently) were there, and then it turned into a concert, and then you were sitting next to me asking what was going on. Why is he running up there? Is there going to be a fight? I said, no, it's a concert! Then I woke up, which was a disappointment indeed.