-Christmas was quite wonderful. I'll talk about family stuff right after this, but I think I will catalogue my gifts first, for the curious...
*XBox 360- With Tales of Vesperia and Madden '09. It also came free with Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones. I've mostly just been playing Madden...for various reasons, I'm not ready to start a RPG.

*Okami and No More Heroes- Two critically-acclaimed Wii titles to complete my collection of all Wii games worth owning. I don't have very many Wii games(thus the need for the above...) I have yet to play either...for various reasons.

*Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia(both DS)- I love Castlevanias. And these two seem pretty good, but both are pretty tough. Especially the latter. I'm stuck on some giant crab boss, and I can't flip it over for massive damage:(

*Settlers of Catan&5-6 player extension- I love this game, so I took it upon myself to get a box of my own. It's already been a hit with the family(more on that soon.) Of course, there's a minor defect: the base game didn't come with any roads!

*Asian Zing and Parmesan Garlic wing sauce- The Buffalo Wild Wings sauces. Asian Zing is my favorite, and the Parmesan Garlic is part of my rotating set of secondary sauces(along with Caribbean Jerk and Hot BBQ.) IMO, BBW is a lot better than Wings Over Albany, so I shall have to cook with them and bring the Word to my heathen friends.

*Buffalo Bills Calendar- Without one, I don't really know when things are happening. A calendar tells me things my brain just doesn't understand on its own. Simple things that are second-nature to most. Like what day it is and how many days there are before that paper is due...

*Pajama Pants- One generic set, and the Buffalo Bills pajamas I'm wearing right now. Carwin would find them hysterical, I'm sure.

*A beard trimmer- My previous one died, so I needed this for basic maintenance.

*An Obama commemorative coin- I didn't mention to my Mom that they're not legit at all. I'll keep it with the sticker and the pin I got for free from MoveOn in a frame or something.

*Batteries- Between the XBox controllers and the Wiimotes, batteries will be in heavy demand, I'm afraid.

*Money from other family members- A lot of this ends up paying for my new key and going to savings. But some is going to checking and a good bit of it into my own pocket.

Right...family gatherings! We didn't do anything except enjoy a nice dinner Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we opened gifts, and went to my aunt's(Aunt Michelle and Uncle Brian, whom some of you have met.) My cousin Karianne got Rock Band for Christmas, so she and my sister played that most of the time. We had the traditional meal slate: raviolis with all the fixings for lunch, steak with my Uncle's famous rub for dinner. In between, I got my Mom, Karianne, Aunt Michelle, and my parents playing Settlers. That was fun. By the end of the game, they had really gotten the hang of it. Karianne won:(, and my Aunt now wants to do pizza sometime so we can play again. We used toothpicks as road stand-ins, which made it a bit tough to make out whose roads were where.

Saturday, we had my Dad's family over. Lots of snacking culminating in a dinner of home-made linguine with bolognese sauce(however you spell it.) Which was great. It was good to see all of them.

Right, there's one more thing tied up with Christmas. I've made amends with Alyshia...well, I'm not sure how far those amends go. At the very least, I've made it clear that she's the one holding back the relationship, if that's still the case. I am perhaps too forgiving, I think, but I cannot operate any other way, and it is a relief to my conscience to know that, YES, I have done everything possible. We have both been not talking to eachother for a while because we thought the other was still mad over previous events. Neat, huh? We had a laugh over that. I'm not going to attempt anything further, she can have the friendship if she wishes to have it(even though it will be a bit troublesome for me, given I still have feelings for her), but I'm not delivering it...