Christmas Eve

Here at Ellen's and feeling good. The Access Van picked me up at 11:36 and took me to Von's in Ojai where El picked me up. She gave me lunch, for which we cracked the bottle of rosa vino I had been given on my last birthday. Since I don't drink alone, I had never opened up, so this was a good occasion to do so. (Verdict? I'm not a fan of rose, as it always seems sort of watery and bland, but it was okay.)

We then watched the remake of The Secret Wife of Walter Mitty (fun the first half, tedious the second) and--more fun--played with the adorable kitties. El made dinner while I hung out. At one point, I tried calling my other kiddies on Messenger video, but couldn't rise any of them.  We had a yummy turkey dinner, topped with vanilla/chocolate cake and, in my case, accompanied by a Blue Moon. 

Our entertainment for the evening was (at my request) several episodes of The Twilight Zone, which were remarkably dated and inept, one and all. El then switched to Portlandia, of which I had vaguely heard and oh, boy, talk about today's humor.  It's hysterically funny, hip, and "woke" and I loved it. 

Speaking of "woke" (I had to ask El what that means), Mike later facetimed us and I sent him a pic of El's tree, which he described as "woke" and a "Charlie Brown tree." 

I somehow like this more than the big, full, added-to, unnatural-looking trees you see everywhere today. They're plumped-up for the market--the one true god is money, no question about that--but this is the way Christmas trees used to look when we got oranges and socks in our stockings.

Mike later sent Messenger pics of the girls wearing my gifts to them: bracelets I bought at a Native American store in Arizona:

Patrick also facetimed from Tokyo, but he was working remotely and wife and son weren't with him. We decided to do a family Zoom call and El sent out the invitation. For our time, it will be 4:00 today--can't wait!