Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I sprained my ankle in an unbelievably intense game of basketball. I was shooting the lights out (I might have been 1 for 12), when I landed awkwardly and then squealed in pain. I didn't even land on top of anyone, so nobody even feels unnecessarily guilty about it, which always happens with basketball injuries. Instead, I basically injured myself and just looked stupid. On the plus side, my semi-immobile status means there isn't a lot to do other than sit here and blog. There's always a silver lining.

My family has mostly stopped exchanging Christmas gifts, which brought my shopping to around zero. Sometimes we'll give each other food, but I don't count that, because we do that all year round. I have the world's worst memory when it comes to gifts. I don't remember what people got me, or what I got them. Like, I know if something I have was a gift, but it's hard to remember who it came from. There was one awkward moment where I gave Stephanie a DVD set of "The Office", only totally forgot that I had done that. Then when I visited her apartment I spotted the DVDs and said, "Awesome! You have 'The Office'!". Then Stephanie (obviously) replied, "uh yeah...you got that for me" and I had to scramble and pretend that I did know that. I don't think she really believed me, which is why I'm making it public now. Steph did get me something very nice this year (a book), so I have written her name in a black permanent marker on it, so that I remember she gave it to me. I have such a horrible memory.

We still get some cards at home even though we never send out any Christmas cards. Every year, after Christmas, my mom gathers all the cards in the house. Then, she writes all of those people a Happy New Year's card. In high school, I told my mom we shouldn't do that because everyone will think we forgot/didn't want to send them a Christmas card, and then had to send a belated New Year's card after the fact. She said this was nonsense, and that she simply didn't have time for it before Christmas, but that I shouldn't worry because nobody would think that. Well, every year when I come home, we have fewer and fewer Christmas cards. At least we're still outpacing Sara's family. She said they only got 4 Christmas cards this year, which is ridiculously low. I would bet even most of my Jewish friends got more than 4 Christmas cards.

I wonder when I'm older, what kind of Christmas card I'll send. A lot of families do the "family photo" Christmas card, which I don't really understand. Like, "Merry Christmas, this is what I look like." I mean maybe if you had lost 60 pounds that year, I could understand, but if you look just like you did the last year, it's not that exciting. Then some people like to send the long newsletter, like 2 pages on what their family has been up to. I'm not a big fan of that either, I think that's better suited for e-mail or a blog. The funniest ones to me are the ones that pretend to be a newspaper, only a newspaper devoted entirely to that family. Like, the "The Lewis Family Times" in some cheesy Word template. For a guy who doesn't send any Christmas cards, I sure do complain a lot. But I got several this year with personal messages, and those are always the best.

Anyways, hope you have a great Christmas, there'll probably be more from me soon, since I can't really move. And if you're thinking, "oh man, I didn't get Eric anything for Christmas", don't stress. Just click the ad on the side of my blog. That's all the gifts I need.