3... 2... 1... Christmas

3...

Athennia says...

By Saturday, Christmas was close enough that we could smell it... or something. (Okay actually I don't even know what that means).

Rosie from downstairs brought up a bowl of homemade chicken, beef, and vegetable soup for the three of us sometime in the afternoon. And then a short time later Lillian brought up an apple pie that she and Jeff bought for us at the Amish market!

Then I made pirogies for dinner so I could jump into making the Christmas cookies that I had kept putting off all week.

Kevin came out for some water later in the evening and found me at the kitchen table neck deep in flour and powdered sugar:

I joked that I've been watching too much To Catch a Smuggler with his Dad when we're over at his parents' house, and then I showed him how to mix the coke (or, I mean the sugar for the icing) into a paste to chemically alter it so the dogs can't sniff it out:

Then I flattened out the baggies so that I can discreetly sew them into the lining of a piece of luggage:

2...

Kevin says...

We knew we'd be heading over to my parents' house for dinner Sunday evening; but first, we got treated to a celebrity sighting!

Or, two celebrities, actually—since it was half Queen Latifa, and half Carmen Sandiego...

Then we had lasagna for dinner at Mom and Dad's; and Athennia put Liv and Hannah into a trance by playing "Dominic the Donkey" on repeat...

Athennia made brownies for dessert, and my mom made chocolate meringue cookies. Then Riley, Liv, and I played a few riveting games of Piranha Plant Escape.

Also, I had a very special Amazon delivery routed to my parents' house since I knew that's where we'd be when it was slated to arrive...

I took my whopping $7.44 payout that a bunch of money-grubbing lawyers decided Equifax's breach of my privacy was worth (after they took their millions from the pot, I'm sure), and I turned it into something that will forever immortalize my feelings on the entire fiasco...

As you can see, my legal team is supremely unimpressed! One of them is a little booger with fangs, the other is from the Super Mario franchise, and both are out for blood.

1...

Athennia says...

Kevin had insisted that we get a picture of the temperature on our way over to his parents, so I told him I'd do him one better and take one on my way to work the following morning:

I still had Christmas cookies to ice and drugs to smuggle, so we copped out and settled for a quick and easy dinner from Domino's. But while I spent three hours icing cookies, Kevin spent three minutes mixing his spice blend and cooking seven chicken breasts in the Instant Pot in preparation for double trays of nachos the following night:

Kevin says...

Let the record show that actually shredding all that chicken when it was finished did take me the better part of an hour, as Kitten well knows ;)

But yes, the plan was to make a crap-ton of nachos so we could take some down to Jeff, Lillian, Keith, Rosie, and basically anyone else in a three-mile radius except for dreadful Ruth and her punky little boytoy.

That plan ended up going south when Jeff, Lillian, Keith, and Rosie—whose vehicles were all in the parking lot when I sat down to start chopping veggies at 3:00—had all vanished by the time I had everything ready for that last 10 minutes of cook time that melts the cheese and fuses everything together.

So...

But, it turned out that when Kitten stopped for tortilla chips on her way home, the store didn't have our preferred brand and she had to settle for some off-brand we'd never heard of before.

And... wow. Those chips tasted like straight-up cardboard and ruined the entire meal, and I could only thank God that things had worked out the way the had—thereby preventing us from sharing a bunch of food with our neighbors and then finding out a few minutes later that it was actually one of the most disappointing things we've ever made!

We still got a fun and hilarious Christmas Eve surprise, however: Just before dinner, I saw a white SUV pull up to our building... and thought nothing of it at first, assuming it was just another Uber or DoorDash driver that are super common around here.

But then a woman got out and started heading to our door, and my brain immediately realized, I don't know who this is; but I know I've seen her before.

Then a moment later, it dawned on me...

Now, lest anyone lecture me on the fact that it was Christmas Eve and I could've just run down and given this moron her package, let me hit you with a few facts...

1. These assclowns moved out back in March. They've had a few days to update their address.
2. They were absolute menaces the entire time they were here: They'd regularly blast their African club music at the most inappropriate times; they repeatedly broke the lock on the main door so their friends could come and go; and they even conned Jeff into sharing his and Lillian's wifi password with them.
3. Each time we confronted them about their crappy behavior, they played the victim card and proudly got worse.

And, so? Christmas Eve or not, this lady could stand out there all night, as far as I was concerned—especially since Rosie recently mentioned that this isn't the first time this has happened.

Funnily enough, the woman caught a glimpse of Athennia peering out the window at her... so we have to assume that—once she knew for sure that someone was here, she probably spent the next two minutes pressing our doorbell and thinking she'd just be completely obnoxious until we finally caved!

But I guess she managed to wake Ruth's boytoy up, because we eventually heard him come out of their apartment and go downstairs; and, a few minutes later, her vehicle was gone.

...Christmas!

Athennia says...

Finally, once it got dark outside, Riley, Kevin and I exchanged Christmas presents, since we'll have an early morning getting over to Catherine and Ron's for brunch tomorrow.

We had long since decided not to put our tree up this year because Odin hasn't outgrown his kittenhood and "let me bite every single thing" phase, and would have just eaten it and torn the whole thing to shreds.

So I bought a cheap Charlie Brown tree back in November just so we could have something:

But unbeknownst to me, Kevin had already made "tree plans" of his own back in August:

Kevin says...

There was a slight delay in the festivities, due to ongoing reports of drug activity in this apartment; and so, the felines insisted on checking for felonies.

The left side of the presents smelled okay...

The right side of the presents smelled okay...

But there's always that one hardass cop who's insistent on manufacturing a crime at any cost just to get another notch on his belt...

Luckily we got off on a technicality: I sent the goons packing as soon as I realized they hadn't brought along a warrant.

I'm sure Kitten and I can drink all the evidence before they come around again :)

But we decided to get cracking on the rest of the presents anyway, just in case the hour was about to strike cat o' clock and they'd decide to play "felis knockitdown" with the tree I had built.

Riley

A couple presents in, Riley asked me if I knew what she was getting... to which I answered,

I do; but I wasn't responsible for your Christmas gifts: You'll have to wait two more weeks 'til your birthday to see my input.

Then each gift she opened just further corroborated that assertion, as she opened... well, basically one of everything from Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret...

...with a Tame Impala and Michael Jackson album thrown in for variety...

Athennia

Athennia says...

Kevin insisted that I go next. And he warned me that I had to check the name tag on each gift since some were from him, some were from Riley, and some were from both of them.

I've had a tradition since the girls were little where I buy them a Christmas ornament every year, and Kevin has jumped on board with that since he and I met. So my first gift was a beautiful bee-themed ornament that can either go on the tree or stay out all year long with the rest of our bee decor (whenever we get out of here and hang it all up again someday):

Next up was a blue glass butterfly from Kevin and Taylor:

...And a sticker from A Handmaid's Tale that he framed so I can display it on my bookshelf.

Then a book from Kevin and another from Riley, recommended for fans of Jean Auel's Earth Children series (of which I'm a HUGE one):

And some A Court of Thorns and Roses themed decor (another series by Sarah J. Maas which I also adore):

Next Kevin gave me two art prints (that he was dismayed to find shifted out of place during transit from his parents' house to our apartment after he had painstakingly centered them before wrapping them last week).

The first is a diary page from Pride and Prejudice:

Then came a personalized sign with three of my favorite authors, again to be displayed someday when we're in a house (and Odin has stopped gnawing on everything under the sun), and Kevin and I can actually display the literal thousands of books we own between the two of us:

...And speaking of Odin, our demonic little furball does still make biscuits on our bed almost every night while we're watching tv. So Kevin figured we might as well put up some advertising :)

It was a really tough call but I think my favorite gift was this pair of Pride and Prejudice whiskey glasses:

When I finally got to the last gift, Kevin reminded me to check the name tag and I saw that this one was for both me and Riley.

So we opened it together:

Odin with tea because he's my cat and I drink a lot of tea:

Penny with a martini because she sits like a proper lady:

And Lucky with French fries because he used to be a chonky boy (and Riley loves McDonalds):

Kevin

Kevin says...

My turn, my turn, MY TURN!

First up, Kitten gave me THE coolest ornament ever: a mini Super Nintendo that plays the opening theme to Super Mario World.

And then she gave me an art print of the (reimagined) World 1 overworld map from Super Mario Bros. 3, drawn by a guy named Alain up in Calgary...

Next up was a Matrix-themed lamp that I wanted for when I have my own office one of these days years...

And then, a Super Mario Bros. 3 shadowbox...

Kitten also bought me one of every T-shirt ever made, I think...

And finally, another print inspired by The Matrix that I had seen on Etsy and found clever and unique.

Terrible photos on our part (the lighting was just merciless from every angle we tried); but it's Neo and Trinity in the elevator shaft, and it says "There is no spoon" at the bottom—which will make perfect sense to anyone who's seen the film...

Also, the seller threw this collage in as a freebie!

And perhaps most importantly, Kitten, the Molerat, and I bought ourselves an extra hour of sleep by opening our presents tonight instead of in the morning before we head over to my parents' house.