This year was about as non traditional of a Christmas as I’ve ever had. It was also one of the best.

Saturday my mom came up from Portland to spend the weekend with us. We all ate a lot and lounged around playing video games. My mom can still kick my ass at bowling on the Wii. I knew that Sunday was going to be bicycling oriented for me so I got some stuff at Home Depot to make a rear mud flap. There is a diagram with an easy and cheap solution on Alex Wetmore’s site.

Sunday morning Peter McKay picked me up for a ride with some of the SIR members. Amy and I were the only riders with gears on our bikes. It started off downtown(ish) Renton and went down to Flaming Geyser State Park out near Black Diamond. The whole loop ended up being just a bit over 100km. It was raining the entire time. I was squeezing water out of my gloves every couple of miles. My jacket worked wonders though and my upper body stayed relatively dry. I need to invest in some shoe covers and a different glove situation though. Both were pretty cold and wet by the end of the ride. Thanks goes to Peter for going out of his way to haul my butt over the hill to the ride and back. Everyone I met was pretty all around amazing and nice to be with. I am hoping to tag along to future rides with them.

The rest of Sunday was spent lounging in as many different comfortable positions as I could find. Despite his massive girth, Frankie managed to jump up on the coffee table and steal himself some roast. I can’t imagine the leg strength that kind of feat takes. To my stomach’s delight, Jane and my mom traded off cooking duties.

On Christmas Eve, our neighbors set up candles along our entire street including driveways. It was beautiful and made me really appreciate how great our neighborhood can be. Jane made Chicken Adobo (the link is making me hungry for more) and baked some cookies which I delivered, dancing around to keep warm.

Christmas morning we went over to see my buddy Terrance, who is fresh off of his second knee surgery. He is still in the walker / hobble stage at this point but he looked good. He has dealt with knee issues most of his adult life so we are all crossing our fingers that this procedure will do the trick. He always buys us goofy little gifts that end up being awesome. This year we received a “weather predictor”. It is hand blown glass with some red liquid in it and a dial on the bottom. I figure it can’t predict worse than the local news.

After that we went off to Tacoma to spend some time with Norman’s parents. They made Puerto Rican food along side some Hawaiian dishes. It was basically a mishmash of the wicked awesome and the fantastic. Wicked awesometastic, maybe. I am still full. We spent a little extra time in T-town enjoying ourselves and left just in time to hit some traffic. Apparently a half naked man was hitting cars on I-5 with his belt. The police shot and killed him. There is a holiday movie begging to be made in here.