This Christmas

 (I was just watching "Last Christmas," the Doctor Who episode where Nick Frost plays Santa. Now the TV - specifically BBC-A, of course - has gone on to "The Husbands of River Song," and I'm sure I'll end up watching that too.)

I was deliberately unspecific about exactly what I was doing for Christmas because it always seems weird to advertise when I'm going to be out of town ahead of time. But now we're back so that's okay.

I think I have to back up and explain that I haven't spent Christmas with my sister in years. (I'm just going to call her P here.) She had a bad divorce some years ago now and she just stopped doing Christmas completely - only in the last couple of years has she started wanting to have anything to do with it. I went to see her last year right before Christmas. She said something vague about us coming to visit her this year, and I talked to Rob about it and we were thinking that we would go to my aunt's for one night (which is what we've been doing) and then we would go see P. So there was a whole minor comedy of errors, basically, where I assumed she could read my mind and probably vice versa, and eventually she decided she and her husband were going to come visit us, and they would stay in a hotel, and that eventually turned into going to stay in a hotel in Galveston, instead (which is where we work, but not where we live, but in easy driving distance, of course). And they were staying several days, and we finally decided we would stay on the island for a couple of days, too, rather than drive back and forth, so that we would see them more, and it sort of felt like a mini-vacation for us, too.

And then with the dates they chose there was no chance of going to my aunt's as well, and I was pretty apprehensive about calling my aunt to tell her that but she took it pretty well. (I basically blamed P for the whole thing, which probably wasn't really fair, but eh.) We promised to get with my cousin & work out some sort of mini-family-reunion sometime soon.

And it all went pretty well. We basically sat around and talked a lot, and went out to eat a lot, and shopped a little bit. We went down to the Strand on Christmas Eve, which is the downtown shopping area, and spent a while down there. We ate Mexican food and IHOP, and then we had two meals at the San Luis, which were fabulous. I had never eaten there before, but it was really great. I don't know if we'll ever do that kind of Christmas again, but it was virtually stress-free, which was lovely.

Aquaman

We went to see Aquaman tonight, and I didn't love it. I didn't hate it, but I was kind of bored, off & on. It seemed kind of like a kids' movie. And there were a lot of kids there - it was packed, in fact - and there was applause at the end, so somebody liked it much better than I did. It was... hmm, maybe better than Batman vs. Superman, because I was bored with that one some, too. Not quite as good as Justice League, as best I can remember Justice League at all. And of course, not remotely in the same league as Wonder Woman.

I have some more-specific thoughts, which I'll put under a cut assuming I can remember how to do one.

( SPOILERS!! )

I took a long nap when we came home from Galveston last night, and then, of course, I stayed up all night. I mean, til WAY after dawn. It might be that I was a little cranky about Aquaman because I was still sleepy, I don't know. And I feel a little like I might be coming down with something - which happens after Christmas a lot. We weren't even around any kids this year to be disease vectors. Well, I've had a flu shot and so has Rob, so if we're actually coming down with anything it will hopefully be over fast, at least.