Another Christmas, here and gone. Amazing how fast it goes , right? I used to hate the holiday season so much but the older I get, the more I appreciate it. And it’s nice, although a bit bittersweet, now that Chooch is older because there is less pressure to crowd the “tree” with useless toys that he will likely never play with. Now he has more appreciation for what he gets and it’s just…nice.
This year, he has a recently-piqued interest for board games, but like the ones that are really involved and require a rapt attention and high intellect. So basically, games that are not for me. We got him a nice little starter collection, I think, and it was just very helpful having an actual THING to go with this year – the last several years, we were lost when it came to buying gifts for him.
Of course, I had fun making up random people that his gifts were from. One of the gift tags came with “From: Santa” always printed on it, so I added an ” ‘s Butt Doctor.”
I also got him a small window hanging of the flag of Tunisia which he inexplicably had become obsessed with and kept thinking that he saw it everywhere in Tennessee over thanksgiving to the point where it became a big joke.
Haha guess you had to be there.
Meanwhile, I had to laugh because Megan and Henry both got me gifts that catered to exact opposite ends of my musical spectrum! These were perfect presents. <3
Drew and Penelope got cat litter paper bags, stockings stuffed toys, and packages of treats! (Ignore the rug – it needed vacuumed bigly.)
Then Henry and I watched all the live performances at the annual Gayo Dajeon show in Korea, and my favorite was this one by NCT Dream:
This song is so special!! I’ve mentioned this on here before, but NCT Dream was formed as the “under-20” subunit of NCT with the understanding that once a member reached age 19 or 20, they would “graduate” out of the group. So, it was never meant to be a “fixed unit,” you know? Mark (in the middle with light blue hair) was the first to graduate and it was INCREDIBLY SAD. He is also in NCT127, so it wasn’t like he was stranded without a group to fall back on, but it was still sad. Apparently, the fans flooded SM Entertainment with their concerns and dislike for this system, so SM was like, “OK FINE,” brought back Mark, and made NCT Dream a fixed unit. So, this song relates to that and I just love it even though it hurts my heart, too.
Then Chooch was pissed because a Stray Kids performance came on next and he didn’t know who they were, so I said, “Watch this” and I muted it and called Henry in.
“Henry, do you know who this is?” I asked.
He looked at the muted TV for .0003 seconds before saying, “Stray Kids.” No hesitation, no question.
“Wow, you’re so cool,” Chooch mumbled. Then went on to complain about how he doesn’t like any of the “new” kpop, just the older stuff. I know he’s mostly just annoyed that it’s become so popular in America. He’s worse than me!
Later in the afternoon, we went to Pink Box for our (newish) traditional Asian buns which we normally would eat while strolling around the local cemetery, but well, you know the weather.
We love Pink Box so so so much! This is so much better than when we would try to scrounge together an entire picnic to uncomfortably eat at the freezing cold (usually!) cemetery. Chooch really likes this new tradition because we no longer do a full-fledged photoshoot like we used to. Mostly because he’s TOO OLD and STUBBORN now.
Yo, it actually wasn’t THAT cold to just pop out of the car and take a quick family selfie but even this made the guys irritated. Wow, just wow, Merry Xmas.
Also: LOL at this being taken at the exact moment Chooch realized he chose his bun poorly. He wanted savory and got a curry green onion and immediately regretted it. Henry ended up trading with him and I took a bite too – it was perfectly fine, but I can see why he would have been a bit taken aback – it was very strong. I felt like it was more so the green onions than the curry though.
Fun fact: I bought this coat for Chooch from Uniqlo several years ago for Xmas and he was like, “HAHA NICE TRY I WILL NEVER WEAR THAT NOR ANY COAT SO DON’T BOTHER” so it’s mine now, I guess.
Wow, what a jump.
We went back home after this, and Henry continued slaving away in the kitchen. We weren’t having Xmas here, but he was still in charge of the ham (gag me), the pie, and the vegan beef Wellington that I selected to satisfy the vegetarian representatives at the table.
The rest of the evening was spent at Corey’s, which I will recap in a separate post because I’m lethargic AF today.