Wrapping up the holidays!

So, I guess you guys want to hear about my holidays, or just want me to write something so you know I'm alive!

First of all, I promise that I am going to get to catch up on everyone else's blogs soon!!! Promise, promise, promise!!

So, me and my holidays...
Well, let's start with Christmas Eve...
I went to Grace's house to participate in her family's massive (they're Italian) Christmas Eve celebration. Topher came too, so that was fun. The food was good. Grace's family is crazy in that way that Italian families often are. :-P

Then I went home to my own family's Christmas Eve dinner. From there, we went to church. Came back, did the traditional stockings and reading of The Night Before Christmas. You know, Christmas.

The next day was pretty quiet, my aunt and uncle flew in on Christmas so we were waiting until the next day to do our real Christmas. We did open a few gifts -- I got a bunch of books I wanted (cause I have so much time to read? I don't know why I keep asking for these things :P) and the Timbaland CD, as well as two Forbidden Broadway CDs. I also got a DVD of behind the scenes Broadway stuff (of course, Matt got two DVDs of movies I had actually asked for, but who's counting? :P No, my stuff was pretty awesome.)
We dropped in on Dad's side of the family for their Christmas -- and Brady was ADORABLE. Ashley, his mother, had a bunch of us shaking his gifts trying to guess what they were. It was pretty bad. :-P And he was having more fun drumming on his presents than unwrapping them, I think. Cutest baby ever. We gave him this stuffed lamb with all sorts of different colors. It reminded me of one of my favorite stuffed animals when I was little -- his name was George and he was a baby blue lamb with a pink and yellow plaid pattern over it. Frikkin' awesomest lamb you ever saw, and so badass too.

The next day we did Christmas fo' rizzle. I got a bunch of stuff, but honestly I was focused more on the best gift that my Aunt and Uncle got me: Darren Hayes' latest CD!!! Yeah, you know, the one I was all excited about this summer???? Aunt Susan and Uncle Robert got it for me!!!
It's been playing non-stop in my car since then.

Sooooo, then there was a whole lot of clubbing at Mirabar and Dark Lady.

And then it was New Year's!!! I worked at the Dark Lady -- it was an ice themed party. All I have to say about that is this:
I looked fucking hot.

How Do I Taste?

So, in my family there is always something (at least one thing) that we will tease a person about until they die. Actually, a person doesn't need to be a member of the family even, but it helps. Today, little Brady got his first one: he slept through my Uncle Tony's 80th birthday. (Granted, he is only 9 days old...) (And he is SOOOOO CUTE!!!)

Other people in the family have their own little things they get teased about. For instance, my father will never live down the cheese-filled sausages. And I? I will never live down a few things (one of which happened the other day and we will not discuss). I will never live down my first frozen pizza.

Much like in the sausage story, mom was not home for dinner. For whatever reason, Dad and my brother were out for the afternoon and were coming home late. They called home, where I was alone. I was roughly eight years old at the time, but responsible enough not to burn the house down so I was sometimes left alone.

As per usual, I let the answering machine get the call and heard who it was before I answered.

"Hi Gray," Dad said (there's that name again.)
"Hi Dad, where are ya?" I asked in my cheerful eight-year-old voice.

Dad answered, "We're on our way home but we're running late. Can you stick the pizza in the oven? Just follow the directions and use the oven mitts."

I followed the directions, I used the oven mitts and the Digiorno (not delivery!) cheese-stuffed crust pizza was going to ready by the time Dad and my brother came home. I was excited that I had done it on my own.

I should have known that nothing with cheese inside it is ever going to end well when it's just the three of us. Except for when it's Mozz Sticks...mmm...

Anyways, to continue on...
Dad and my brother came home a little before the oven timer went off to announce the pizza was done. Dad took it out of the oven, got our pizza slicer out of the drawer and went at it.
"God, this is a tough crust," Dad groaned, pushing down way harder than usual on the pizza cutter.

My brother decided to take a turn at cutting. We all took turns. We sliced the pizza, except no one could get through the bottom crust. My brother decided to try to tear his piece of, because the pizza was clearly done.

There was a silence as his hand slid under his piece of pizza. "Gray, did you remember to take the cardboard of the bottom?"

"What?" I asked.

"There's cardboard on the bottom of a frozen pizza. Did you take it off?"

There was about a minute of silence as I realized what was going on. "It wasn't in the directions...." I just followed the directions. Whoops.