The holidays are always a bit of a maelstrom. But this year, man, they just whipped me raw. My sister’s birthday falls two days before Christmas, and the birthday of one of my best friends is two days after. Megan’s celebration normally entails some type of party courtesy of moi (I love playing hostess, and I love my sister, so there you have it), but this year I just couldn’t seem to get my act together. So I cleared my Saturday night and left the details up to her.

I woke up that morning ready to sweep n’ mop my way into a coma, and found PRESENTS under the tree!

I had told Katsu that all I wanted for Christmas was Rock Band, and was dismayed to see that none of the gifts looked band-esque.

And Yet.

Note the look of terror in my eyes. I don’t think that was exactly the reaction my dear husband had hoped for when he dropped whateverthefuck horrific chunk of change on the thing, but, then again, I’m never one to be tactful. I think the first words out of my mouth were: “but i could have gotten it at a DISCOUNT through WORK!” See? Whenever you feel hopeless just think, “I could be married to ErinirE, that heinous beast.”

After our joyous gift exchange, I baked my sister a cake. A two-layer, pink-frosted Funfetti nightmare. It’s always been her favorite, and always makes me want to puke in all the colors of the rainbow. Speaking of puking:

oh hey, I’m just kidding. Nobody puked. Although, shortly after this picture was taken, a certain someone may have slipped on the way to the bathroom and pulled our Christmas tree down on top of her. Not naming names.

There was much eating, much drinking, much gifting, much rocking, more drinking,

and then on Sunday morning I woke up and was dead. At the height of my misery, I’m told that I instructed my sister to ride home with my husband and that I would join them once the world stopped spinning. Eventually I regrouped, clothed myself, and watched idly while Katsumi packed up our car for our three-day trip to the suburbs. We spent the afternoon with his family, and once my hangover wore off, I realized I had a cold.

ugh.

The cold got worse as the days went on, and by 10:30 Christmas morning I’d shotgunned so much DayQuil that going to church felt only slightly less hallucinatory than that one Phish show where the brownies actually WORKED, but oops, I ate three of them. Story for another time.

This is my dad opening up his Christmas gift from me.

then my camera died, so that was that for that.

I learned too late that my new laptop had Photobooth, so I made up for lost time by taking a bunch of pictures of myself. Awesome pictures. Like this one:

I seriously felt like shit and a half. The next morning I woke up at 7:30 with the intention of packing up my presents, my clothes, my cat, and my husband and driving back into the city. Instead, I plugged in my new computer and composed a email to my boss that went something like this:

“sick. gah. noo moreo dayQUiL. kant come in today, srslly. call mycell if u neeaxd me.”

I actually would have liked to stay in bed for several weeks, but Wednesday and Thursday were all I got. Thursday night I had a birthday dinner with one of my dearest friends, Friday night I was hosting a party with five of my high school cronies, and Monday, of course, was New Year’s.

The theme for the party was “Get Ready to ROKK 2008” and we were all to dress like our inner rock stars. Apparently my inner rock star is a slutty goth chick, and frankly I’m a little disappointed.

As an endcap to this mammoth post, let me answer the question that I know’s been plaguing you from the outset…

In the end, Katsu *did* get me Rock Band. Which pretty much makes me the biggest most ungrateful bitchface wife ever. But seriously, what can you expect from someone who teaches both her sisters to smoke?