So Christmas 2007 has come and gone. It was an odd one for me. I enjoyed it and Wendy blogged about it here (and she blogged about Boxing Day here). This is Mark’s seventh Christmas and he was the same age I was when my dad walked out a couple weeks after Christmas. I remember a lot about that Christmas, including what an ass he was that holiday and thinking how much better life would be without him. Those thoughts came to haunt me within a couple of weeks and he was gone and life was changed. I may not be the perfect dad but I made it this far. It’s an odd milestone to celebrate but it feels pretty good. As a friend of mine said, “You have to experienced it to really understand what this feels like.” I think the rest of you will think I am going crazy but that is okay too.
Christmas was a simple affair as it often is around here. I woke up early, went down to the Centre with Maggi to haul some televisions out for the guys and wish a Merry Christmas to the staff that was working. I was home by around 8:15 a.m. and everyone was just getting out of bed to open gifts. The big gift of the day was for Mark. A couple of months ago Lee said he wanted to get Mark a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. We phoned and phoned and no one had one (well done Nintendo. I wonder how many PS3′s were sold by people who could not get a Wii?). Somewhere along the way, Mark started to say that he wanted a Sony Playstation 2 like his Uncle Lee. We realized a) you could find them b) it was cheaper c) there were a lot of games to play for it. So Lee got him a PS2 and Wendy and I bought him the Guitar Hero I & II combo and the guitar controller. One thing we learned while opening the gifts is that Sony’s marketing hasn’t gotten to Mark. As he was opening the gift he said, “I see a P and part of a S. I wonder what this is?”
We played The Simpsons game for a bit before we took out the guitar and then the competition started. For the last two days Guitar Hero has been played by at least one of us and a lot of smack has been talked around here. I hate to admit it but both Wendy and Lee are better than I am and Lee is the reigning Guitar Hero of the household.
From the family, Wendy gave me Warren Kinsella‘s book, The War Room. Mark gave me Steven Johnson‘s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. Mark and I have been watching Poker After Dark on Sportsnet and I am fascinated by it although I am embarrassed to say that I have no idea what is happening during the show. To help remedy that, he gave me No Limit Texas Hold’em Tournament Edition 2006 (with some help from Wendy). Maggi gave me Kanye West‘s CD, Graduation while Santa Claus dropped off Shadow by Bob Woodward and The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. Lee gave me one of the new Star Wars themed PSP’s. Until I was playing around with it, I had no idea it also had a RSS reader in it. Expect to see a PSP feed reader checking out your feed stats in the near future. Until I get a memory stick for it this week, I will have to remain content with fighting the Empire.
After we established I was horrible at Guitar Hero, we stopped in and saw the Pederson clan and then was off to the Reimers were we had a great supper with a large group of friends. Today was more Guitar Hero (Wendy and Lee were battling it out) and we managed to take Mark to the park to test out a used GT Sno Racer I got for him just before Christmas and his snowboard.
The only bad part of the holiday season is I have had a fever, chills and cold for most of it. Thursday I am back at work and hopefully this gets better than worse.
