prismaticbleed | dec 25 2015 (Reply)

guess who just got back from 2 hours of singing at midnight mass?
THIS guy and I’m exhausted *immediately collapses into bed*
Life is gorgeous though and I’m really happy right now. I love this holiday.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE ♥

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@1:04 PM

Christmas at the hometown church.

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@3:19 AM

so it's christmas today! things were a little hectic but nothing can ruin this holiday, not even 70° weather.

we went to our dad's apartment for about 80 minutes which was really nice.
at one point we were talking about salt mines which are apparently MASSIVE and dad said he'd ask our one buddy at the garage to tell me more about them on monday; he'd drive to one in new york pretty often (he's a trucker) and he said the place was mind-blowingly huge. but yeah, instant headspace-related interest there, i need to look into that more.

dad made this little church entirely from wood and brass and other trinkets he had lying around and it's lovely:

i got to sand it down during work one day, that was fun.
but yeah dad is an incredible carpenter, as well as a painter. i admire him so much really.
(we built a really nice bookcase at work this past week, you should see that)

then we went home to open presents.
I remembered to take pictures of our glorious pink tree:

it's very hard to take photos of because it's so pink, but it's so nice to sit next to. it's a very warm/soft color of light.

knife came out for a minute while we were opening gifts, totally unexpectedly, and just stared at the tree with total awestruck wondering joy. it was the sweetest thing.

there's at least one photo that caught jay, because it was taken without us knowing. jay can't "pose" for pictures as he's not a social and he will get kicked out immediately upon eye contact, especially in a "performance" situation. but he was fighting to be the main fronter as much as possible today because he's safe and not manic and actually pays attention. so memory is spotty but the effort paid off, we actually feel like christmas happened which is good.

and now for the tradition of traditions: the annual gift list!

things we got for christmas this year:

- four boxes of tea (mint, lemon ginger, lemon zinger, bengal spice)
- coconut vinegar, coconut water, & coconut oil
- apple cider vinegar & lemon juice
- tons of spices: curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, 5 spice powder, garlic powder, & cayenne
- 6 bars of soap & 2 tubes of toothpaste
- two really awesome monochromatic shirts
- three neon colored shirts to paint
- one teal shirt that reminds me of infi for some reason
- two really dope pairs of leggings
- slippers for when I'm standing at my computer (like now)
- a wegmans gift card of an unspecified amount (mom forgot to tell us, haha)
- dvds of inside out, epic, the theory of everything, the book thief, shutter island (finally), dragonheart 3 (???!!!!!) and at long last, how to train your dragon.
- a tiny bottle of PEPPERMINT OIL which is our favorite scent EVER so we're super glad.
- 5 packs of nori seaweed sheets. it's the best.
- a whole basket full of garden-grown acorn squash and kale. hey, mom knows what we can eat.
- ROCK BAND 4. YES. now we just need to figure out how to use the boys' xbox one, haha.

here's a photo of the living room because i usually never take one but it's the defining picture of christmas morning for us personally (that and kenny g's holiday albums playing in the background):

unfortunate things that happened today:

- our infamous kitchen-abuse alter decided to eat chocolate and christmas cookies and we got so sick it's not even funny. honestly the body is a mess right now. we'll feel better in the morning.
- some serious yelling from the grandfather. he's very scary when he's mad and he hasn't been mad in months so that made us totally freeze & shut down.

the best things that happened today:

- everyone loved the presents we got for them, as small as they were, which made me so happy. I couldn't afford much but I tried and it was sincerely appreciated, so that's wonderful. we got lightning a box of dark chocolate (the kid likes his snacks), got diamond a little plush seal (and his eyes lit up when he saw it; he used to collect seals as he loved them and i'm so happy he still does), gave both those two $20 as theyre hard to buy for... and then dropped $50 for viral and got him these two books. he was psyched. he's wanted those for years but could never find them in stock. so i got lucky! i also gave him a card with a picture of god tier jade in it (he's basically 'kin' with/of jade, for lack of a better term) which he also loved. and we got mom $10 worth of super fancy chocolates and she was SO happy about that; man that made me all fuzzy inside. so it was great.
- we used $50 of our christmas cash to get a copy of pokemon omega ruby. we ALL decided this was a good investment because not only are pkmn games full of wonder and joy, it's tied to the lost years and so maybe this will help us reach that time period to heal stuff. not only that, but the best christmas of our life-- 2013-- was hallmarked by playing pokemon y as we listened to our ipod and walked around the christmas tree all evening. we don't even remember last christmas, and since this one has been bogglingly jumbled so far, we figured having a new pokemon game would brighten things up a little. so god willing the brother will let us chill in there for a bit, as we revisit that world. frankly we're all very excited; although we don't recall the high school period well at all, the ONE thing about it that was marked as an indelible positive thing was pokemon ruby. we used to sneak our gba onto the bus and to class, and play it in secret when we got the chance. we don't recall the gameplay BUT we've visited the cartridge since then, because we lived in the area surrounding lilycove (our secret base was right by mt. pyre and rt. 120) and the absolute gorgeous beauty of that place is seared into our memory, even if nothing else is. so yeah, this is jewel's game, and we're all looking forward to this new adventure in that old beloved world.
oh yeah. forgot to mention, we actually bought the game on wednesday, so we could get a certain special someone on our file. it was 100% worth it.
- we used another $50 of our cash rather unexpectedly, because last night we logged into our ancient email to reset a password and what do you know, there was an email from a book website we haven't visited since at least 2012… one which was meant to browse online sites to find rare books for sale. well, ages ago, we set up our account for it to notify us if it found a copy of a certain super-obscure comic, one we've been hunting down for about 5 years and which has been out of print for at least 10. and guess what? they found a copy. for 50 DOLLARS. the average price for this is $200. the absolute luck of the situation was so sudden I could not pass up the opportunity, so we immediately bought it and it'll be here for the new year. I'll show you when it gets here.
- our brother made us a simple handmade christmas card, but it's the BEST THING EVER. IT HAS SANS ON IT. WEARING A SANTA HAT. AND MAKING FANTASTIC PUNS. needless to say I LOVE it and every time I look at it I just grin, it's fantastic. so that made my day more than anything else. my bro has the best art style too, sans looks so cool in it; I'll have to scan it in and show you tomorrow.

there was a ring around the moon last night, it was beautiful.

also last night we were playing pokemon-amie on Y with our event legendaries and I love them so much, they're adorable, and hoopa is the CUTEST THING EVER. gosh I want to smooch his little face, he's precious. I love him.
I also forgot how much I love the rest of my team. zedrick, saltaire, toshi… I completely forgot what it was like to play that game, which is sad, but we still have strong memories of it which is odd in the face of that. nevertheless, jewel has omega ruby now and she's better at playing games than me so I can't wait to watch her have fun doing that. I want to see who she builds as her team, that's always the best part of the game.

we already sold two things on ebay, yes!! that's $80 towards debt payoff, and we're putting our last christmas $50 towards that too so we're at $130 already. nice.
we’re not spending a cent of what we earn on ebay for ourselves, because this three-year debt keeps crawling on our back and we want it GONE because it's not fair to make people wait that long. it'll be a huge relief when it's finally settled.

(later)

I'm so sick, I want to cry.

the brother keeps switching horribly quickly between "nice mode" and "ranting to thin air" mode and when he does the latter he tends to slam doors and accuse people and it scares us down to the guts.

we're so so so so sick we want to sob.
our head hurts and our mouth tastes like adrenaline and we're dizzy and nauseous.
I wonder if exercise would help. we haven't exercised in weeks because we've been weak and cold and just don't feel well. I wonder if the porch is warm enough. we'll go try.

…

(2am)

so we just grapped our mp3 player and went out on the stationary bike for 35 minutes. IT HELPED A LOT.
the air is such a nice temperature tonight (it's chill but not cold, so to speak) and it smells wonderful. plus there's a full moon and the nicest gauze of clouds moving above, so all around the moon there's a slightly iridescent shine of red and yellow and blue, it's beautiful.

then we downed two entire mugs of mint tea, haha. so life is good.

did you know rod stewart has a christmas album? (really, rod stewart. really. < /injoke >) it's lovely actually. I really, really like his voice. listen, it's nice. (that performance makes me so happy by the way)
plus he's an endearingly pretty man as far as my personal preferences are concerned so that's cool too.

oh, and I just went outside to look at the moon again and the clouds are gone but you can see the ring and I GOT A PICTURE.

when I went inside (after a few failed tries) the "good voices" told me to turn back around and try the dusk/dawn setting, so I did, and it worked! so that was wonderful, I thanked them for that.

anyway. it's 2am and we need to be up at 9 because we have some shopping to do before church.

I love you guys. merry christmas.