The weekend was good. My family isn't particularly religious or concerned with tradition, so Christmas at my dad and stepmom's house is a casual affair. We attended the annual neighborhood Christmas Eve party, where, for the second year in a row, I drank moderately and managed to not disgrace myself. (In previous years I have exhibited such charming behavior as toppling over in the hosts' front yard mid-sentence and muttering darkly to concerned-looking neighbors about another guest whom I dimly remembered dissing me in fifth grade. I'm very classy after my eighth glass of wine.)
With that out of the way, we spent the rest of the holiday hanging out and eating rib roast. We also froze in the backyard trying to find the stupid comet, but the stupid moon was too bright.
After dinner, Eric and I went for a walk around the creek to stave off beef poisoning and take some pictures:
Snow.
There's more:
The bridge I took to school.
The school to which I took the bridge.
A crane or something.
A pig!
(Well, kids, the presents are all unwrapped and dinner is over; guess we'll take the pig out for a stroll. It was a great pig, snorfling and wagging its little pig tail like crazy. Its owner wasn't half as cheerful, unfortunately, so I snuck the picture when she wasn't looking.)
Then yesterday we left Plano to go to the new modern art museum in Fort Worth.
The art was good. We got to see abstract expressionism and minimalist sculpture, and abstractly sculptured expressionist minimalism. And so on, plus photography, light sculpture, and video installations. Anyway, the ladder was my favorite.
I thought the museum was maybe even better than its holdings. The building and grounds were harmonious and stunning.
After we felt we had our six bucks' worth of art and architecture, we stopped by my stepgrandparents' house, where they gave us sandwiches and told us about their trip to Poland while we all half-assedly watched the Cowboys game. It was a good visit; I don't see them that often, and when I do it's usually in the context of a big, kid-centric family gathering.
After that, we made the ugly, boring drive home to find Ben, who is doing well and invited us up to Portland next year.
And so that's Christmas. It was fun and actually pretty easy.