Unraveling: Holidays Redux

A week has flown by and we are already halfway through January. This is my life right now: nose to grindstone at work, exhausted by the end of the day, and all I can manage when I get home is dinner and then bed. Very little knitting going on. But we have a three day weekend!

Friday, I took the afternoon off so we could visit Mr. Celia's family and finally celebrate the holidays with them. I was sweating the 1 p.m. departure time, as one of the gifts had not arrived. You know how come up with a brilliant gift idea in November and you figure you have plenty of time to take care of it? Well, I remembered on Monday, "Oh, Crap!" - and had to pay extra shipping to get it here on time. I tracked the package: Left the vendor in New York on Tuesday afternoon, left Newark, NJ Tuesday evening, traveled to Memphis, TN (?!) Wednesday, and finally came into Oakland on Thursday afternoon and was on the truck headed to work on Friday morning. Our delivery time is usually about 8:45 a.m. But my package wasn't delivered. Crap! I kept checking with the mail room, but it hadn't arrived by 12:45, so I checked one last time. It wasn't there. I gave the mail room staff my desk and cell phone numbers and dejectedly headed back to pack myself up to leave and try to think of a better excuse than "I'm a chronic procrastinator" for why we didn't have a gift for our nephew and his wife. But this story has a happy ending. As I arrived back at my cubicle, the phone was ringing. It was good news! The delivery guy found the package on his truck and came back just in the nick of time! Mr. Celia called from in front of the building while I was retrieving the package and then we were on our way.

We had a simply lovely dinner out at La Rocca's in Fresno with Mr. Celia's Brother's family (including the ever-charming grand nephews). Nothing better than good food and good company. Then we went back to Grandma's house to exchange presents. Our gifts to them were hits, but paled in comparison to the clever gift I received - an International Pajama Day care package, complete with snacks, chocolates, tea, a gift card for video rental, and an International Pajama Day Save the Date calendar:

My sister-in-law put this together, with photos of knitting projects that I've posted on the blog. She reads the blog, people! And she used it to create a very thoughtful gift. Now it's up on the wall, and the next IPJ Day is marked.