Written: December 30, 2006 at 2:04PM EST
Christmas Break (or should I say, Winter Recess, to be more politically correct) has been awesome. Albeit it’s only a week away from the freaks which I am forced to associate with daily, but still freedom from them! 
To top that off, the end of the first semester is drawing nearer and nearer. But as a result of this, I have a feeling that the work-load is going to double if not quadruple. I am quite surprised however, at the amount of homework I had over vacation. Only 40 note-cards for an American Literature essay. Considering I am taking classes like AP Spanish, I am surprised that I only received that assignment! 
Over the course of break, my sleeping schedule is getting more and more messed up (as I’m sure many other people’s are too). Going to bed at four or five in the morning and waking up in mid to late afternoon. I’m expecting it to lead to my downfall come next week. Last night, as I’m sure everyone knows, Saddam Hussein was executed (I’m expecting to hear nothing but this for quite some time). My sister and I, both interested in what the result of this would be were watching CNN last night and we became quite uneasy.
Only hours following the execution, a car-bomb exploded at an Airport in Madrid, Spain as well as increased violence in Iraq. The fact that across the bottom of the screen, messages of fear of repercussions in the U.S. did even more to instill this feeling within us. I myself have no idea as to what will occur, but I am pretty sure it won’t be good.
Written: December 27, 2006 at 11:06PM EST
Christmas. Weeks in preparation, over in 24 hours. 0.0
I can’t deny, I had a really good Christmas. I got to hang out with my family and I got a bunch of stuff that I wanted. A surprise visit from my father also occurred. Like I said in the post below, no one at my house really got that into Christmas this year (besides my sister, and she convinced me to help her set up the big tree. Keep in mind this is midnight on December 24th). Of course nothing could go slowly, and I dropped a large portion of the tree (fake of course :P) on my toe and cracked the nail right down the middle.
Then the joys of wrapping gifts! It’s funny, people spend upwards of six hours wrapping gifts, and in a matter of seconds everything is unwrapped! Oh well. This year, we celebrated two Christmas’s, one here at home, and another at my grandmas. I have to say I got quite a lot more than what I expected. My list included…
- Magic Markers
- The Wizard of Oz (DVD)
- A new Sweatshirt
As you can see, it was quite a full list. Of it, I got the sweatshirt and the DVD. That was all I really wanted this year, but everyone went overboard and I ended up with over $300 in money, a Video-Capture Card, a TON of new clothes, and eventually a car. I honestly wasn’t expecting it and I feel kinda guilty for receiving most of it.
I don’t know, Christmas just isn’t like I remembered it when I was younger. It’s lost qualities which I used to like, but what can you do?
Finally, the first semester is winding down. By January 22nd, I will no longer have to deal with Mr. Hart, or Mr. Gaylord’s insanly long essay projects (too time consuming), and no more Mrs. Sisti and Superwrite! I can’t wait!
While on the subject of Gaylord, I have 18/40 index cards left to do on an essay which he hasn’t really explained and it counts as 50% of the final exam! I’m so thrilled about it. Oh well, they warned us, I just had no idea how indepth it was really going to be!
Written: December 26, 2006 at 11:54AM EST
For the last couple of months, we’ve been kinda busy and we figured we shouldn’t even bother putting up the large tree, so my mom dug out our little one (which usually goes outside) and set it up in the living room. My sister, the Christmas fanatic, convinced me to help her set up the big tree almost 8 feet tall) up. (Its fake because I have horrible allergies and the pine needles are a pain to vacuum out of Berber carpet.)
Anyways, our first task, dig the tree and the presents out of the nook underneath the stairs. Usually, we took the tree and decorations out of the nook via a large hole designed to access the nook. Come to find out, AFTER clearing out a path to get the tree and stuff out, the hole was sealed shut, making it impossible to get the tree out.
So we did the next best thing, my sister squeezed between to studs underneath the stairs and straddled the box. Then slowly she began digging out parts of the Christmas tree and handing it to me. I run each piece into her room (in the basement) and hid it. The whole reason for being secretive is because our mom didn’t want to mess around with the tree and decorations. Finally, after digging the tree out, we went for the decorations. We must have dug through at least 8 large plastic bins before finding them. We did come across a rather strange find “Jerry Springer… Too HOT for TV”. After transporting everything into her room and hiding it, we were set, now all that was left was to wait for our parents to go to bed.
Through this part of the experience, we learned one thing…
(sorry about the blurriness, camera was being weird)
“You CAN fit an 8 foot tree into a 3X3 foot space!”
At about 11pm, our parents went to bed and we set off to set everything up. Step one, take tree out of closet. As we did that, one of the larger parts of the tree fell on my toe. While attempting to be quiet, I was jumping around, foot throbbing , swearing in a whisper. We then carried everything upstairs.
We quickly set up the tree and decorate the living room. While trying to be as quiet as we could, the dog had other ideas. Picking up her soccer ball, she begins hurling it down the stairs. She would stomp down, grab the ball, walk up and do it again. Finally, our mom, fed up with the noise told us to go to bed. By this time, the tree was all set up and lit, and the living room decorated. She didn’t even see the tree when she yelled at us!
Done, we went to bed. 6am rolled around and my mom came and was surprised and happy to see the tree. She said when our stepdad came upstairs to go to work, he saw the tree and called her upstairs asking where his socks were. She came up and he said…
“Those little shits” staring at the tree, trying to get our mom to look”
So that’s my little Christmas story.
Merry Christmas!
Here’s the result!
