"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

Christmas was pretty great, apart from arriving a day late because I missed my flight and my parents had to pay $700 for the ticket rebooking and half of my books had severe water damage when my luggage arrived late (long story very short).

I finally received my birthday present from my parents since they couldn't mail it before. It's a beautiful small ruby ring with a simple white gold setting and a tiny diamond on either side of it. My dad bought it in Singapore, which is apparently his place to go for jewelry (he was there on sabbatical during my senior year of high school and went back recently for a conference). It's currently at a jeweler's being sized to fit my freakishly tiny fingers.

I got an amazing array of Christmas presents as well. My parents tricked me into believing that they hadn't been able to find a cross pendant I'd seen last year after Christmas, when in reality they had tracked down the jewelry artist (who apparently lives in Pennsylvania) and had a copy of the pendant made for me. It's just a simple cut-out flat silver cross (about an inch tall) but it has a fish etched into it. It just spoke to me for some reason and now I finally have a cross to wear on a regular basis.

Among the remainder of my presents were the final ElfQuest graphic novel that I didn't own (Book Eight: Kings of the Broken Wheel), Hugh Laurie's book (The Gunseller), the uber edition of Pride and Prejudice (the good/long one) on DVD, three amazing pairs of tights, etc, etc. Everyone loved the gifts I got them (my dad teared up when he saw that we'd donated to the Red Cross in my parents' names) and we didn't argue much at all. I really enjoyed it and didn't have a breakdown or anything.

Also we saw Charlie Wilson's War, which was very good. I'd highly recommend it.

And now I think I'm getting sick. Oh well.