The first week of my vacation in California was spent, of course, baking. In order to simplify my normal quite-impressive spread of desserts, I asked my family which were their favorites and made those. My mother likes the small Snowballs, otherwise known as Mexican Wedding Cookies. My sister is always a fan of the toffee cracker candy. My dad, after a rambling monologue, admitted peanut butter and chocolate chip are his favorites, and then he elaborated on what I finally gathered to be the 7-Layer Cookie Bars made with sweetened condensed milk. Then, because baklava is my favorite I had my list set. And I made Divinity too because the extended family really seems to like it. My cousin Geoff once said "This white stuff is so good. What's it called?" three separate times before getting distracted and going into a rhapsody on old-fashioned women's hats.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and we went over to my grandfather Jason's house across town. Gradually everyone arrived and we ate the traditional sandwiches and potato soup in a disorganized fashion before all gathering in the back room for presents. As we've gotten older the present opening is no longer the chaotic blur of ribbon and wrapping as it used to be but more sedate. My aunt Jane got all the grandkids a fuzzy blanket which is one of the softest I've ever come across. It's very nice. As the presents wound down the (also traditional) wrapping paper fight started among the male cousins, with the aunts and female cousins getting hit more often than any of the boys. I tried to retaliate against Alex once and got his girlfriend Mary straight in the head. Toward the end someone started using a wet dishtowel, which was gross. Finally, Matt hit our uncle Joel in the head with a heavy wad of wrapping paper. It gave a tremendous thunk, and Joel, who was handing out the small and very valuable envelopes that are Jason's Christmas presents, threatened not to give Matt his, though he eventually did (not before crumpling it completely, however).

Sunday morning my family opened our presents to each other and then had eggs and bacon before heading off to church, after which we headed out to the valley an hour away to my uncle Craig's house for the Christmas celebration on my dad's side of the family. My cousin Elisabeth and her husband were there and my grandparents. Craig grilled a pork tenderloin and had made excellent mashed potatoes. He emailed us the recipe and no wonder they're good, for eight potatoes you use two packages of cream cheese, 3/4 cup half and half, and half a stick of butter melted on top. Mmmm mmmm. At the dinner table it was interesting to see my cousin husband, Jacob, who she lives with in Seattle and who hasn't had much interaction with the extended family, taking my dad seriously. Elisabeth had been talking about their difficulties with getting the washer and dryer they'd bought down to the basement, and my dad goes, "Well, you guys have solar dryers, don't you?" and Jacob asked about that for a while before my dad admitted he had meant a clothesline.

Monday after Christmas my family drove up to Davis and Sacramento to go to bead, quilt, and yarn stores, and we drove back along with river which was very pretty. Tuesday Melissa met up with her high school friends while I did enjoyable spend-my-Christmas-money shopping. Wednesday Melissa and I went into San Francisco. I was going to do one of the gigs with the marching band, who had arrived for the bowl game, but it ended up being cancelled, so we brought my friend Graham and his girlfriend Jen to the Hornet, the aircraft carrier that's anchored in Alameda. I think Graham really enjoyed seeing all the planes (jets? I'm a ChemE, I have no idea).

Then yesterday was the bowl game. My parents and I set off pretty early in the morning and took BART into San Francisco. We got lunch and got to the stadium half an hour after the band had already gone in but I just told the guard at the media gate that I was in the band and late, and he let me right in. No trouble at all. Someone (I think Graham) said later, well, you don't look like a terrorist. I suppose that's good. I found the band no problem. After not playing for over a month my lips weren't in bad shape, either. Utah scored two touchdowns in the first quarter to our zero and the game proceeded like that. It was pretty pathetic, but I had fun talking to the other trombones and didn't mind. Amanda, the trombone who's now a drum major, showed me her fancy new digital camera and the arty stuff she's done, using "macro mode" which is apparently what the flower icon on my camera is that I've never used. In the end of the third quarter after our team had made another horrific fudge I went and got garlic fries, the specialty of SBC park. They were good. The garlic wasn't overwhelming. I shared most of them because they are a lot to take. Josh, one of the trombones, brought out Altoids afterwards, saying we desperately needed them.

After the game my parents found me and we walked along the Bay back to BART. They had sat on club level and really enjoyed it. My mom said she had no idea a stadium could be so nice. I had an inkling, I've walked through the nicer buildings connected to our stadium at school, but the rest of the stadium is concrete and borderline acceptable bathrooms (though far above places like Auburn and Clemson, which do not have acceptable bathrooms). Josh said that this was the opposite of the Miami trip. The Miami trip was horrible but the Miami game was fantastic. Here, the trip was fantastic but the game was horrible. Even, I guess. I've never been an insane football fan so I didn't mind. I don't take it personally.

Now my vacation will settle down again. I think I might even go take a nap.