The infamous Christmas post.

Today is January 22nd which means it's the perfect day to bring out the Christmas pictures! Hey, at least it's less than a month since Christmas. That counts for something, right?

Because I'm in grad school and not financially wealthy, I opted to make most of my Christmas presents this year. The couple of exceptions being for Boyfriend (because I already had the perfect gift for him) and Mom (because she is notorious for not liking anything she specifically tells you to get her. Harrumph.). I made my sister a cute apron and it turned out wonderfully! Here she is enjoying it in its apron glory!


I wanted to make my Dad something that I knew he could use but that other people would see it and think, "Wow, that is a sweet thing, Mr. Reile!" so I made him a tie.
It turned out kind of lumpy and very wide at the top but it was my first tie and he promised he would wear it. When I talked to my mom last week she asked my permission to make it smaller and hopefully less lumpy. I told her to go ahead because she's better at sewing than I am. To her credit, even though I didn't make her anything, she was really proud of what I did make. I also made a couple of pillows for my Dad's University of Michigan themed room. It's kind of been the default present for my family to give my Dad but he still likes those kinds of presents. Or he's good at pretending. Either way.

I got Boyfriend a video game and this T-shirt from Threadless.com. He's wanted that shirt for a long time but I ordered the wrong size and when I sent it back to exchange it, they were out of his size! So I was foiled on the awesome present front. He did like the Lego Batman game I got him, though.

I did manage to be secretly awesome on getting my parents to buy Boyfriend the present I really wanted to get him: Mac OS X Leopard. He was so surprised and happy! Look at his happy face! I told him that I had sent my parents a list of things that we wanted but I left off that I asked them to get him this. And I'm glad my parents decided to get it for him, too. I got a lot of really great presents, too. Boyfriend got me these super cute slippers and I got more sewing accouterments from my mom. What did I get my mom? I bought her a weaving book she said that she wanted. The funny part was that she forgot that she told me about it and was really happy when she opened it. Then I told her that she told me to get it and it was funny that she hadn't remembered that.

When we were at Boyfriend's family's house, we had lots of good food and quality time with his niece and nephew. His nephew got Guitar Hero World Tour for the Nintendo Wii and we played it. We've vowed that when we get out tax returns back we are going to buy it because those drums are too much fun to play. I sometimes think about buying it now but I suppose food is more important.

So this was Christmas. I think this holiday went very, very well. I was glad that my presents went over well and I genuinely had fun with our families. We're going back to visit family during my Spring Break in March and for a whole week so that will be great. It's weird that the older I get, the more I enjoy my family. Someone must be drugging me or something.

I also wanted to post these Christmas cards I made for Laura and Sheree. I'm super, super, super bad at sending things like cards out and just sending them things in general. I'm going to try to send them more things because I need distractions from homework and what better way than to send things to friends overseas. So, Sheree and Laura, here are what your cards would have looked like, had I sent them. The star represents where I am currently located in Michigan: the city of Royal Oak. Or at least as much of an approximation as I could eyeball.

I also couldn't decide which one to send to which person so that's my other excuse for not mailing them. And they're bigger than my hand (here's a picture of one of them by my hand) so how could I have mailed them?! There isn't anything written inside because I got lazy. But I cut out all of the Michigans and animals myself. It was hard to get that penguin's wavy thing right. Just so you know. This is what I do with my down time at work. Halfway make Christmas cards. Please know that I do miss you two and thanks for not being as lazy as me and sending me cards!

That's all from the Christmas holidays. I'm actually going to make a post tomorrow of this really awesome shirt I made and my new haircut.