All things considered, I had a wonderful Christmas.  Christmas Eve is when we have my mom’s family and my parents over to celebrate every year, so I knew that would be the hardest to get through.  My aunt (Mom’s sister), my dad, my brother & I all kept watching each other, but with the aid of Mad Gab and cigarettes, we made it through.

I usually use Christmas Eve to try out new recipes and generally with a fancier flair.  This year I decided to go with only comfort food.  You know- nostalgia food… food that makes you instantly feel better, if even just a bit.  Everyone was asked to bring at least one of theirs & boy did it end up in a crazy, delicious hodgepodge.  We had fried mushrooms, cheese fondue, mochi, crab rangoons, pizza, this crazy hashbrown thing I make with cheese & onions, hot cheetos…

The motley mess was topped off with a mix of my mom’s china and disposable utensils.  It probably couldn’t have been a weirder meal, but everyone was pleased.

We asked my dad and brother to join us for our normal Christmas day activities and am really glad we did.  We skipped the Christmas movie this year though.

I still have a few exchanges yet to happen, but I am tremendously happy with the gifts I gave and received this year.  Some of my favorites on the receiving end are:

• A T-shirt from this crazy, surreal horror flick called “Hausu” from the 70’s.  I just love it.  The film was hilarious and down-right trippy, with some fantastic 1970’s Japan imagery and art.  The shirt is awesome, and thankfully, the only people who will get right away what I’m wearing are as fucked up as me, so I don’t have to feel bad about it.

• A book called, and I kid you not, “Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow“  I love “Gravity’s Rainbow”.  It is one of those books that stays with you for the rest of your life and as each new chapter of your life unfolds, you can relate to it in different ways- it just keeps evolving as you do.  Pynchon’s verbal imagery ranges from explicit to leaving you feeling like you’re watching an episode of “The Twilight Zone” while living in “Twin Peaks” and drunk.  Flipping through the book, it seems that Zak Smith has managed to somehow capture both.

My copy of “Gravity’s Rainbow” is lent out, but my lovely partner picked up a library copy for me as a guide to the illustrations.  Let me be clear- Zak’s Smith book is not an illustrated version of Gravity, but page after page of art depicting what happens on each page of it.  I’m utterly delighted by this, despite knowing it will take me a  l o n g time to actually get through it.

• “Rift” by James Jean

I am an avid “Fables” fan, and it was through that series I was initially introduced to James Jean.  His gorgeous works of saturated color that mixes the delicate, the divine and the disturbed, fit beautifully with “Fables” (he does the cover art).  I was given this new work of his for Christmas and found it completely compelling.  The book is done in an accordion style and created in such away that you can flip different panels together to create different scenes.  Totally cool.

• Monty Python killer rabbit slippers.  They are comfy; they are warm; they are killer rabbits.  What more could my feet want?

I made out like a bandit this year, and also got some fabulous clothes, graphic novels, etc.- all which were amazing.  So… I made it through.