Back at the ranch (or in this case, main floor of an old Victorian house in Brockville), things are going well. I'm waiting for my father (and sister?) to arrive from Barrie, when my father will put together the fireplace/mantle he bought me for graduation/Christmas, and my sister will have sneeze attacks over my cat. Dad will then take my brother and I grocery shopping for party paraphenalia, after which I may steal the car to purchase booze, and possibly ransack Value Village looking for hatboxes as I have a new decorating idea.
Spending the holidays at home was... enlightening. I realized a lot of things about a lot of things, some positive, others not so much. Next year will be different, now that I know what I know.
The best part about the whole thing was getting to hang out with the girls. Three of the four of us live in the same city (at opposite corners, I grant), but hardly get to visit because of our (particularly mine) strange schedules. The other lives several provinces away, and thus is a rarity and we couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to play with her. We went out for food, ate a lot of garlic, chatted about our S/Os and our cats, about cooking, about school, about food, but oddly not a whole lot about ourselves or what's going on in our lives right now. Perhaps a large gathering of people in a public place isn't the time for such things. What did happen, however, was necessary, theraputic, wonderful, and made me feel like an old biddy surrounded by old friends and cats. All we needed were knitting needles and crochet hooks, cheap romance novels, cake, and a few pitchers of sangria and we're the YaYa Sisterhood.
Yet somehow, this does not sound like a bad idea.