This entry covers the activities of December 8:

I had a hard time leaving town this morning. There is a Turkey Trot held in my neighborhood the weekend before Thanksgiving. I usually don’t leave my house while this is going on, so I can ignore it. However, it got canceled (last I heard) due to the smoke issue going on that weekend. Little did I know that it wasn’t canceled, it was RESCHEDULED. For this weekend. Which I did not know about until I tried to leave my house to run a few errands before I left town. I was relatively able to drive out of my neighborhood because the route I was taking wasn’t blocked off, but what probably wouldn’t have taken that long took a lot longer just trying to figure out how to get back home because the streets going back were blocked off, OR the stoplights were out. Half the town was blocked off or otherwise not passable, apparently. Grr, argh.

On a related note with the smoke issue, heavy fog started creeping into the area that I went to today around 12:30-ish and stayed heavy all day and night. It was giving us all deja vu and making us wonder if the smoke was back.

Anyway, I went to the Bay Area this weekend to go to a friend’s party--Angelica is a family friend who used to work with my mom until recently when she got an awesome new job. It was an ugly sweater party and once I heard that, I admit I was all “I’M GONNA WIN, I’M GONNA WIN” about it because I handmake my own ugly holiday sweaters, y’all. Hell, I had options as to what to pick, though I decided to wear the Hawaiian one eventually.

I was actually impressed that almost everyone (except for one party guest who left early and I’m guessing was going to work or something later?) actually wore an ugly sweater. I think I’m so used to living in the town that I do where hardly anyone ever dresses up that I expected no competition. I actually saw several sweaters I photographed here. Angelica’s mom wore this one. Her husband wanted to wear this one but his wife talked him into buying this one instead, saying he would win. And he did. That sweater looks even more insane actually on a person with arms extended. Hell, even I voted him for first place (though uh, you weren’t allowed to vote for yourself). My sweater didn’t seem to get noticed until I explained what it was, at which point I won second place and a Starbucks gift card. Ah well, still pretty good.

We played Christmas bingo. One of Angelica’s coworkers won the first round, he and Mom tied for second (the winner was determined by drawing numbers out of a hat, he won but gave Mom the prize) and then she won the third. Go figure.

As for the Stealing Game, this had a lot of amusement for everybody. A lot of people threw Starbucks cards into their gifts, which was ah, popular to say the least. The opening gift was a penguin, which got stolen three times, mostly between Angelica’s parental figures and her boyfriend’s sister. The same thing happened to a similar snowman. At one point there was some threatening as to whether or not the sister was still going to be invited to Christmas or not. Also, “See? You never should have stolen from your wife.” At one point Angelica said, “I’m not gonna uninvite you like my mom.”
Angelica got stolen from quite a lot and I think at some point the sister(?) said something like, “Do I want to keep stealing from the same person?” “As her mother, I give you permission.”

Quote of the party: “Stealing is the holiday spirit.”

At first I got a collection of drinks and lotto tickets and Starbucks gift card and a game, which eventually got stolen from me for the lotto tickets. I in turn stole a book on surviving worst case scenarios.

I brought a really awesome gift for this crowd--a Darth Vader stocking--but I really need to wrap my gifts in something huge and blingy or something because mine was the very last one opened. The girl who got it obviously loved it though and carried it around for the rest of the party, so that’s a yay. I hinted to certain folks that they’d love it if they got it, but Oh Well for them.

Anyway, that was a lot of fun! After that, we went back to the olde hometowne and met up with Roger to drive around looking at Christmas lights, which he called “fishing” (accurate). I was snarky and he enjoyed it, apparently. So that went well as well. Then I went home to watch “Christmas at Pemberley,” which I’ll review at some point (still not done writing that up, while writing this up and posting pics of the sweaters for this). It was really good, classic awesome Hallmark! So, good day here!

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