Home, oh, for the holidays

What a pleasant holiday season this has been, all thanks to the enjoyable, warm company of various friends, including a good helping of Live Journalers.

Christmas Eve, we hosted a number of neighbors, including keanubear and Greg, their friend Cory, bowlerbehrsf, cthelarger, and Regi and Mike, who aren't on LJ but are well known about town. We had pie and Christmas cookies (bowlerbehrsf brought a yummy "tollhouse pie"), and watched various Christmas-themed TV specials, and several of those involved already wrote up their impressions of the evening. One of the best Christmas Eves of recent memory.

Christmas day, we opened presents, then made scalloped potatoes and a meat pie and went over to our friends Mel and Victor's place, where we were joined by other friends Dave and Vic. (Every man named Vic or Victor I have ever known, is gay. As is every Tim.) All in all, a fine time, although their four dogs tended to demand attention all day. One Chihuahua even stole a Brussels sprout off the table, and in the confusion of getting it away from him, it stole and swallowed a big hunk of ham.

Friday qbear and I met up with cthelarger, telecommunicate and baraksf to welcome the wonderful hercbear back to town with a sushi lunch in the Castro. We spent a couple of hours in the deserted Japanese restaurant (not a lot of people want sushi during the holidays, evidently) talking, laughing, and getting to know one another. hercbear is a great guy and we look forward to seeing him again and meeting his elusive partner Fred.

Saturday Jack got a massage during the day for his aching back, then we went over to cthelarger's house to hang out, order in pizza, and watch DVDs (Visions of Light, Pillow Talk, Zoolander) on his big screen projection TV. Another great time, and we're so glad we've finally met him.

Today (Sunday) we met ultrabithorax for lunch, and once again, had a fabulous time with yet another wonderful Live Journaler. This is a great way to meet people, isn't it? We hung out with Adam all afternoon and discovered that we even had a picture of him in one of our old photo albums. Back in 1996, a bunch of bears met at Bethesda Fountain in Manhattan before Gay Pride Day festivities, and I took a photo of the assembled crowd, and there he was, right in front. So it's kind of like we've known him for seven years.

Even some of our Christmas presents were somewhat inspired by Live Journal. I got Jack the vintage paperback of The Trouble With Angels, inspired by a discussion of the movie a while back. Also got Jack the Burgundy and Bordeaux wineglasses from Spiegelau Authentis, as mentioned by danlmarmot and cpratt two weeks ago. Excellent wineglasses at an unbelievable price.

We also got some DVDs and books and games and stuff, but we never get what we really want. Real estate.