In Dawg‘s world Christmas starts on the eve. I am part of Dawg’s world now. Ergo.

I worked until 2:45pm on Christmas eve then went home and crashed for a nap since we’d been out late for Ninja food the night before and I’d gotten up on time to go to work before experiencing my second major holiday away from Vermont. B and DH were supposed to join us for the big event but DH hadn’t been feeling well the day before, so around 1pm I learned the news that they would not be in attendance that evening, and this was a pretty big blow to my happy quota at the time because (I never mentioned this, heh) I had a small meltdown at Thanksgiving because I was away from all the people back home and then the Vermont trip got cancelled because of the snow so I was honestly very concerned that without B there I would have a far larger meltdown than before. Apparently I don’t trust myself to be A Big Girl and Suck It Up and Handle Shit, but we’ll get to that later. When Dawg got home from work he slipped into bed and gently woke me up. I was very happy to see him.

I got up and showered and got dressed for the big event then we were off to Mama Dawg’s to meet up with Dawg’s parents, Pudding, Pudding’s SO (who will from now on be referred to as TYOB), The Wolves, and Dawg’s other girlfriend Gwennie (TYOB’s sky terrier). We all hung out for a bit and caught a few minutes of the first showing of A Christmas Story in marathon form on TBS then took off in as few cars as possible to London Lennie’s for our 8pm holiday dinner reservation. When we got there Dawg and his dad Hollywood parked the cars while everyone else but me went inside. I stood outside the front door and called my mom for a pep talk. I just didn’t want a Thanksgiving repeat, so I needed to talk to my mom and hear her voice and just fill up on a happy chat. That’s exactly what my mom did for me so I went into the restaurant a few minutes later, jazzed and ready for the night. We were seated right away and we all ordered our meals. Baked clams and calamari were passed around the table for appetizers. I tried the calamari but didn’t care for the texture, which I hear was much chewier than last year, so I’ll try again next year. The taste was ok, just the texture skeeved me out and the piece I chose looked like a deep-fried baby octopus, then everyone explained that calamari is baby squid. Have I ever mentioned to you all that I try my hardest not to eat baby animals? I gave this horrified look to TYOB but then didn’t explain why, heh. All the grown-ups except me had seafood. I had a Caesar salad (I’d return just for that salad) and a rib eye steak with baked potato. I know the kids had chicken fingers or fried shrimp, depending on the kid. Everyone was happy with their meal. We had great conversation and everything went great! We all had coffee or dessert after. Because I knew this wasn’t even close to the end of our evening I had a cappuccino. At the very end Blinky handed me the kids page she had been coloring on all night and written in her handwriting it said To: (Poppy) From: (Blinky) on it. You know that went directly on the fridge as soon as we got home many hours later. It’s the only thing on the fridge besides a sticker that tells me how to recycle and a Yankees pendant magnet Dawg got from work, so it’s very special.

Around 10:15pm we got back to Mama Dawg’s and ate cookies while we exchanged gifts with Pudding, TYOB, and The Wolves. It was a fantastic time. The Professor was thoroughly shocked and awed by his gift of an iPod nano. Blinky didn’t actually get her gift because Dell still hasn’t shipped the laptop Dawg ordered on December 1. Pudding and TYOB were very generous in their gifts to me and I was very thankful. TYOB loved her gift from me and Dawg (really just Dawg, but I wrapped it and tagged it) of an orange coffee maker that she kept hugging and saying no gift could ever top it. The other wolves got good gifts too. I think my personal favorite was the Spanish-English Miriam Webster electronic dictionary that went to the oldest wolf who had sassed Pudding earlier in the week when she told him he needed to improve his grade in that class. Note to world: Never sass your mom, it’ll come back to bite you right in the ass. :winks: He just rolled around on the floor laughing when he opened that gift. I have to mention somewhere, in between all the chaos we threw love to Kit Kat, Yin, and Yang who were dancing around the house trying to stay away from Gwen and out from under everyone’s feet. They did a great job, and even let us hold them a bit. When it was midnight Pudding, TYOB, and The Wolves packed up their things and they headed home to New Jersey with Gwen.

Dawg and I stayed behind to exchange gifts with his parents and brother and with each other. His family was very generous to me as well, and I’ll just say that the tangible objects they gave me are very much appreciated, but their acceptance of me into their family means so much more. Also, Dawg’s favorite aunt sent a gift, and Mama Dawg got gifts for the kittos which they loved. And, of course, it was (beyond words, but we’ll choose the word) nice to open gifts with Dawg on the love seat and each get to squee over them. He got me the Dewey the cat book for my subway reading and (SQUEEEEE) the iPod Touch, engraved with a very clever inscription of love, for my subway listening and watching pleasure. *sniffle* He said he wanted to get me a protective case for it too but wants me to pick it out since there are so many choices, YAYAYAYAY!!! The kitties got him a hooded black Jedi robe so that Ripley stops staring at him naked in that lustful way (it’s really naughty and disturbing) then from me he got a Mighty Mouse journal with pen, two sets of no-longer-being-made Star Wars lego figure magnets, and a digital picture frame. We were both very happy with our gifts and went home around 2am to wish each other Merry Christmas then crash in our own bed.

At 11am today Dawg jumped up out of bed unexpectedly, which roused Georgie who woke me so I got up and said Merry Christmas again then fed the girls. I didn’t realize I was interrupting any sort of flow, but when I was done feeding the girls I went into the living room and sat down on the couch. Dawg snuck in with that innocent look on his face he gets when he’s trying to temporarily hide something from me, with his hands tucked behind his back. I knew that meant I should smile and not ask questions so I turned to the TV to continue watching the marathon of A Christmas Story on TBS. A few minutes later he was sitting on the couch and I looked over at my chair and there was a gift bag there. Inside the gift bag: peanut M&Ms, a donkey/democrat Pez dispenser, a Starbucks gift card (I’ve become a regular at the corporate monger’s again… love the venti bold coffee of the day and the signature hot chocolate with whipped cream), as well as shortbread Chanukah cookies that had a cut-out dradel on the back! I told him I didn’t have anything else for him but he pointed out we still had Saint Nicholas items left unused as of yet so he was happy. :winks:

After grab bag present opening Dawg loaded photos onto his new digital photo frame while I loaded things (including the iTrans NYC Subway app) onto my iPod Touch. My mom called and we chatted, then I chatted with my stepdad and we all wished each other a merry Christmas. Then Dawg laid down on the couch underneath a super soft blankie that Pudding and TYOB gave me the night before and took a nap. Mama Dawg called and asked us to come over for steaks so we agreed to do that. I took a nap under the super soft blankie. After the nap we got ready and headed over and had steaks and potato pancakes and croissants with Mama Dawg, Hollywood, and Brother Dawg then we hung out and finished off the A Christmas Story marathon then watched the tail end of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and it was suddenly 9pm so we went home to get some rest before work.

And that, boys and girls, was our first Christmas together. :love:

To see photos of our Christmas please visit Dawg’s Christmas 2008 flickr set.