Holiday wrap-up

It was a busy couple of weeks for GF and I. It was our first time spending Christmas and New Year's together, so we had to make sure we visited each and every one of our relatives. And it was GF's first time visiting parts of California that don't prominently feature princesses and a giant talking mouse.

It was hectic, it was stressful, it was frustrating...and I'd do it all over again next year.

It all started on the morning of Dec. 21st. We drove from our "Seattle" home to the Bellingham area to watch WSU's first bowl game in 10 years with some of GF's family. What started as a monumental event for Coug fans everywhere turned into bitter disappointment when the team Couged it harder than I've ever seen before.

For the uninitiated, "Couging it" refers to when the WSU football team blows an opportunity to win and embarrasses the whole school in the process. And we Couged it hard that day, blowing a 15 point lead with about four minutes left in the game. I've never seen a team fumble on three consecutive plays before (sure, one was overruled, but I still count it towards our ineptitude on that day).

The next day we split up - I returned to original "Seattle" home to see mom's side of the family while GF returned to our apartment because she had to work on the 23rd. I had time to revisit with Puma and Big G while she slaved away at work.

Christmas Eve at my mother's house was...abbreviated, for lack of a nicer term. Instead of enjoying my family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner followed by presents, GF and I found ourselves dining on fast food and back on I-5 again by 7:30pm as we drove back to the Bellingham area.

By this time exhaustion was setting in, especially for GF, and the busiest part of our schedule was still to come. Christmas Eve proved disappointing, but I was determined to make the rest of the holiday enjoyable.

Christmas Day saw us hopping from place-to-place as we celebrated at four different homes before the day was over. We went everywhere but Canada for Christmas. But it was certainly a great day for me as I got to enjoy all of GF's gigantic family; and it was a nice change of pace from my usual schedule of flying out on Christmas Day.

We finally got an "off day" on the 26th. By which I mean we drove back to our place, unpacked, then re-packed for our early morning flight to San Francisco. It was time to do Christmas one more time - California style!

Gathering at the Hoff family ancestral home in Sacramento for the weekend, my own gigantic family gathered for another dose of Christmas cheer, lots of food, fantastic family time, and more holiday loot! By this time my bags were getting heavy with Christmas presents, even though much of it had been left in Washington state. Highlights included:

• A Klay Thompson t-shirt
• Doctor Who Monopoly
• The fourth season of Justified
• More silverware than we know what to do with
• The warmest sweater I've ever received
• My college degree (my mother lost it in 2012 when I was in San Francisco)
• Every currently published book in "A Song of Fire and Ice"

Of course, this time of year isn't about receiving - it's about sharing precious moments with one another. And suffice to say there was a fair amount of that too. (Although the loot doesn't hurt either).

GF, battle tested by the size of her own extended family and by vigorously studying the Hoff family tree, excelled in her first meeting with the family and was welcomed by all. If anything, she was more popular than I was. I guess I'm old hat by now.

Additionally, this holiday season marked the first time I got to celebrate GF's birthday with her. I cooked one of her favorite meals and let her choose her own birthday cake.

We rounded out our vacation by touring all across San Francisco and celebrating New Year's with some friends of mine. Unfortunately those last few days were marred by the two of us, plus my dad, catching a cold, so things were not quite as thrilling as they could have been. But GF was still impressed enough to declare San Francisco better than Seattle, which is all I needed to hear.

We returned home this past Saturday. GF calculated we had celebrated six Christmases, one New Year, and one birthday together while visiting eight different towns during the course of this single vacation (with another birthday just around the corner. In case any of my readers were regretting not getting me a Christmas present, here's a second chance...).

Barring the amount of travel involved and illnesses, it was a spectacular couple of weeks. We'll have to talk about how we want to handle future Decembers, but all in all I had myself a wonderful holiday season. Here's to hoping all of you did too!

Happy post-Holidays!