Part I: Post-Christmas catch-up!

Hey there! Sorry for the rather long yet unintentional blogging hiatus! Gosh, it's been over a week since my last post. Oh well, it WAS a busy time with Christmas celebrations and all. And I do believe I've acquired the beginnings of "Pregnant Lady Brain," which keeps me from remembering miscellaneous tasks, etc.

Christmas really flew by this year. Of course, we are still in the 12 days of Christmas so to speak, but it's hard to remain in the spirit of Christmas when everyone else in the world seems to take down their holiday paraphenelia as soon as the clock strikes 12:01 am on Dec. 26th. But then again, Christmas isn't about holiday paraphenelia...

Job and I shared a very special first Christmas. On Christmas Eve afternoon, we exchanged our gifts. He gave me some "coffee money," some "ebay money" and a scanner (ooh!), which we will both benefit from :) I'm actually excited to start posting some art on here.

Later on that day, I faced my first bought of "homesickness" as far as Christmas family traditions go. I had to miss out on my family's annual Christmas Eve-day tradition of making hand-made raviolis. Yes, yes, I shed a few tears and moped considerably. Sweet Job even offered to drive me over to my parents' house... but by the time we would have arrived there, we would have stayed for 30 minutes and had to come back for Job's family celebration.

So I stayed mopey, and we made our way to his family celebration. I absolutely hate being mopey, and I prayed that something would help me snap out of it. Well, after a while things perked up and my poopy attitude miraculously vanished. My mother-in-law arrived unexpectedly (she also works in retail, and originally was assigned to work on Christmas Eve), and that brightened up the evening very much!

After attending the candlelight service at the local Friend's church and a big dinner with extended family with the in-laws, Job and I headed to my parent's house where we all met up and opened our presents (we always do that on Christmas Eve).

We probably stayed up way too late, but we ended up making it to the tail-end of Orthros the next day, and then Liturgy. Since St. John's is currently in the basement of a shopping center, we were able to have a "candlelight" Christmas morning Liturgy, which was very beautiful. After church, everyone broke the fast with a delightful array of yummy meatses (as Gollum would say) and cheeses. I, of course, had no fast to break since I was exempt from the Nativity fast in the first place (being pregnant has its gluttonous "perks"). But it was fun to finally share in the feasting fun with everyone else. Eating meat and cheese and whatnot isn't really fun if you're doing it by yourself.

The rest of the day was spent with my family, my grandparents and our friends from church (including Rhett)! We watched 'Fiddler on the Roof' and later dined on the amazing raviolis... mmmm! Every year I prep myself to eat as many as possible, but they are so FILLING that I can never get past a 1.5 helpings. Okay, that sounds like a lot, but if you tasted one of these things and you only got to eat them once a year, you'd want to pack down two dozen, too!

So, that ends my story. I decided I'll have to break my "post-Christmas catch-up" into two posts, since I still have a special story to share about St. Basil's feast day...