for the most sensitive among us the noise can be too much.

Well, my day was wonderfully relaxing. Started the day with the annual Disney Parks Christmas Parade on ABC followed by viewings of Home Alone, a Disney movie, Babes In Toyland (live action 60s version), and the Santa Clause. I went straight from the Christmas movies to the fandom stuff starting with the Doctor Who Christmas special (ALL THE SOBBING), the Sherlock minisode (ALL OF THE SQUEEING), and finishing right now with Downton. I'm holding back my opinion until it's all over but I don't have strong opinions of S4, anyway.

Feel free to talk to me about the shows! Spoilers will be abound if you haven't seen them yet. I still have to get back to other comments and messages. My work schedule this week has been particularly wacky. It's been one day off and one day there and it's pretty tiring. All I want to do is stay home and have two days off in a row. Thankfully, I'll have that next week and I am looking forward to it.

As for gifts and greetings, I bought myself the complete Home Improvement DVD set on amazon today since they were all on sale. Joy! Can't wait to get them so I can watch them. But I still have my new Sherlock blu-rays to watch. So many things to watch! Not enough time! I already need another vacay, haha.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! What'd your hauls look like?

Christmas lunch: baked potatoes, turkey, gravy, my mom's caldereta (Filipino dish), homemade spinach pies (first time I made them and they were delish), and hot apple cider enhanced by this mix I bought at the Biltmore on vacay this year in North Carolina. The cider was particularly good. Nom nom.

Does everyone have something planned? I sure hope you do! For the past couple of years we've been in Vegas for the holidays enjoying a ridiculous amount of room service and gambling and shows but decided to skip that this year for a traditional Christmas gathering at my Uncle's house. And I can't wait for it!

As for Christmas Day plans? Sure, I have them. They're called -- the ABC Christmas Day Parade, Elf, Home Alone, and Home Alone 2, a new Doctor Who episode, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Babes In Toyland... okay, I won't have time for all of these but Christmas isn't over until New Year, damn it! I have movies upon movies to watch and a very minimal amount of days off this year.

Honestly, I can't even think right now. I just got through a whole lot of wrapping and I need to wake up early to leave work early to drive to hang out with everyone. Blog post from the house tomorrow!

Beautiful day today in Los Angeles.

I woke up pretty late after staying up really late last night. I haven't stayed up that late in a long time and I have no idea why. After all the crying and unexpected annoyance of yesterday, I'd have thought I'd go to bed early but that wasn't the case. So, it was close to lunch by the time I woke up and my mom and I decided to go out. We were going to get our tree anyway. We had a really nice lunch, a really nice talk, and a bit of shopping. I crossed a couple more people off my list and I'll send their gifts tomorrow. I'm still working on Christmas cards. I hope I can get those out tomorrow, too.

The tree we picked this year is beautiful. It's the perfect shape, the perfect size, the perfect height. We haven't decorated it yet. I was planning on getting started tonight but I still have the cards to do. I'll post a photo when the tree's decorated and there's something underneath. I solved my little (non) problem about Christmas gifts from my mother. I ordered a few things from amazon and that's that. I'm definitely happy. Gift taken care of! I think I have a small gift for her for Christmas and then I'm probably gonna go all out for her birthday -- present, card, food, the works. I got her a laptop bundle from Best Buy. She's always wanted one and it was so cheap! You get a laptop, mouse, case, and flash drive all for $329 + tax. Crazy, right? My first laptop cost $1,000 and it had 6 GB in it. And the only laptops I buy now are Macs so those are $2,000 but for a basic laptop with the bells and whistles, $329's a great price.

My mom and I are pretty quick about getting a tree every year. We usually see one, make sure it's a nice height, size, cut, and then that's it. Two years in a row now we've picked the first tree we saw, had it wrapped up and tried to the roof of my car in less than half an hour.

One of my favorite Christmas memories is this time we had a Toyota station wagon. We picked a really large tree and we put it inside the car, put the seats down so it would fit. I know this was illegal as hell but we didn't live too far from where we picked the tree. Me and my dad laid down on either side of the tree and held on to it while my mom drove us home. We smiled and laughed the whole way home, holding on to the branches to make sure the tree wouldn't fall out. I mean, I couldn't do anything about it if it fell. I think I was 5 or 6 years old at the time but it was fun, doing something dangerous, all of us happy.

Happiness comes in other ways now. Like today when I was driving the tree home and I drove my mom past a studio we live near. Then *N Sync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" started playing on the radio. I blasted the song at full volume and sang the rest of the way home. Always good to form new happy memories.