The car situation hasn’t really been figured out, yet. I’m still looking around and haven’t found anything that I want just yet. I’m borrowing a pick up that my father had, and usually just riding with Allison. I figure I’ll lock down on a new car before the fucking ball drops next week.

I’ve said many times around this place that I adore and fucking love the holiday/winter season. However, it hasn’t felt like winter. It’s regularly 65 degrees here and that’s just wrong. I need that chill down my spine as I feel the breeze creep into the house, or see my breath hang in the air as I walk to the shop, or feel the crunch of the powder white snow collapsing against the ice. I don’t want to be working outside in jeans and a t-shirt. I don’t want to see girls walking around in something that isn’t an adorable sweater or jacket with rosy cheeks. The holiday season hasn’t felt like the holidays, not remotely. There’s not a shred of “joy” or “cheer” throughout the land. Just a mass mess of consumerism walking around looking for some stupid ass Video Game System to make our children grow fatter, lazier and more incompentant at anything other then Left, Right, Down, Up, Left, B, Select, Right, Down, A, Right, Up.

Yesterday, I had my mother’s family to deal with. Ironically enough, as a child, I couldn’t find these people endearing. I got older and despite their increased obnoxiousness, I can handle them easier nowadays. Although, we hold these xmas gatherings at my cousin’s house and I get it, “Your Rich!”, seriously. They had a entertainment system that Marvin would have whipped his untouched dick out and jacked feverishly. TV’s don’t need to be 70 inches wide and 18 feet high. I received about $300 in gift cards from Best Buy, Target, Restaurants and Barnes and Noble. I don’t enjoy getting cards because of the lack of sentiment attached but given that I know none of these people aside from these family gatherings, I can excuse them for it. What I dislike is that given the size of the family, each person is given a list of 12 people to buy for (not including the boy/girl-friends, you have to be family or married/engaged into it) Everyone has a different list and somehow, everyone gets the same # of gifts, other then my grandmother whom usually gets about 30 pointless gifts. I just got her a gift card to Cracker Barrel since she likes that shit.

Allison skipped this one because we agreed to just do one side for each family and she had to work last night. That’s a shame, she fits in more with my mother’s side then she does with my father’s side and she’ll join me tonight for that one. My father’s side is incredibly boring. Nothing happens, it’s the same conversations, same jokes and this time it’ll consist of less random syllables spoken during the Bengals/Broncos game.

It’s a complete contrast. Mom’s side is rather pretentious and money obsessed but they are at least alive. Dad’s side feels like a funeral with the awkward head nodding, small talk and general feeling of “I gotta get outta here” floating over the tiny house that belonged to my grandmother before she died and was brought by my aunt. I know for a fact at least 10-12 people who usually attend this aren’t because they don’t want to.

Gifts used to be dispersed but given the lack of closeness (in spirit, we all live close) between my intermediate family and the rest of my dad’s distant family, that’s gone now too. My uncles, aunts and cousins don’t feel the need to exchange gifts with my family. They’ll do their real Christmas later tonight away from us. It’s a fucking farce. It’s Christmas without presents, family warmth or anything. It’s thanksgiving but with less food.

I’ll do Allison’s father’s side tomorrow night and that’s about the same as my mother’s side in that they’re pretentious snobs as well.

The real issue was the decision if she would have xmas in the morning with my inmediate family, since she doesn’t have that with hers. My sister waited 2 years with her husband while they were dating before he did that with us, I took that cue and felt maybe it’s too soon and she completely agreed. It feels weird. She’s moving with me, in this very house in a few months, here all the time and yet, Christmas morning is still to “sacred" to impede on, she felt.

I spent way too much this year. $7,849. To be exact. To be fair, most of that was on my father's gift. Otherwise, it was about my usual average.

In the next week, I'll be having two Year in Review entries. One for my personal life, which is about 80% of the content in these blogs and a wrestling based one over ROH, WWE and TNA including my BEST OF 2006 lists including the top 25 MOTY's. The #1 is probably obvious but the rest of the list might surprise some.