A Christmas Tale.

Well I truly hope that everyone I know got what they were hoping for from the big fat man with the beard, and I dont mean the next door neighbour. On a personal level I made out pretty well (after dropping a few telling hints). After the usual essentials I also received a copy of the untouchables dvd a season review of Arsenal's last premiership win in the season of 2003-2004. An extra bonus last night was finding out that it did in fact play on Marcs portable dvd player which was one of the gifts Marc received...usually dvd's are region sensitive and you just never know as it is confusing. I do have a region free player but it works better with our small tv and in any case there is some "hooking up" of cables and stuff like that. Also I received a lovely sweater/jumper from Jill. The only problem with that is that the security tag was not taken off and if it is forced off it will destroy the garment with horrible ink...still it is the thought that counts. Thanks babe!!! Then I think my dad is sending me a windbreaker which I had requested, a Kildare football one with the county colours...from the sounds of the ould lad he went to a great deal of effort to get it. Living here I feel the need and compelling to be even more patriotic than I ever needed to be in Ireland. Any semblance of identity is of the utmost importance to me, and it will be worn with great pride. It is also so important to represent as when you wear such garments here in the states people who do recognise a Kildare/Ireland/Arsenal shirt come forward and talk to you and I have had some interesting conversations with a lot of different characters, one I can clearly remember was a scot about 50 years old we met on the bridge of a small stream during Musikfest afew years ago (perhaps a story for a future post). Anyway I digress. Jill and I recieved a lot of gift cards and AAA membership which is important if you get into car troubles and of course to book any kind of holidays or vacations. Of course we plan on going to Disney again next year 10 months from now so AAA membership will be good.

Marc made out pretty good too and along with clothes he got some dvd's for his poratble player and some PS2 games and a Gameboy game also. He got a small kind of bowling alley game and a gumball machine which I opened to put the gum in. However I didnt screww it shu and the next day Marc got into it and proceeded to eat (not chew) about 10 of them. Marc doesnt understand the concept of chewing gumballs, to him it should be called eating gumballs. The gumball dispenser was perhaps the one that caught his imagination more than any other. And the bowling game was a close second. The bowling pin which was attached to a mechanised system actually broke from a combination of Marc bowling too hard and the locking being secured by a small plastic clip which under a lot of hitting was bound to break. Jill was able to get a replacement and we think the manufacturers may have lots of people calling about the same weak link in the games durability. We got it in the mail yesterday and it was in place by dinnertime last night, thank you Ray!

We had a very nice turkey meal as is more traditional to Ireland than America in a nice gesture to me as Christmas day has to have a turkey meal. Jack (my brother in-law) said grace -which truly has to be heard in person-and we had a nice meal. Oh and on boxing day I was back to work for the rest of the week.