christmas day itself was excellent - i made a huge pot of split pea soup for dinner (great grandma's recipie), guests showed up to help eat it, then we went to see sweeney todd (i really enjoyed it - although i do understand j's complaints about the changes i thought they did a good job with it)
i have a very long weekend coming up filled with (i hope) good friends, dancing, delicious food, and an excellent new years eve (and almost no work - burning the leftover leave is a good thing)
i'm still recovering and trying to get back to normal, but the visit wasn't bad - some of it was awesome and some was pretty awful, but overall it wasn't as difficult as i expected it to be...
the plane trip to bwi was abysmal, and my luggage didn't arrive til the next night about 7pm, but the house was surprisingly clean and uncluttered (when i was there it was a constant battle to keep things neat and i'm pleased to see that's changed),
zooom;'s new gf is good people, my family is about the same (still trying to convert me to xtianity but otherwise i love them) and the people i missed most were all doing well and i got to spend time with almost everyone i wanted to seehighlights included thanksgiving dinner at sean t.i.b.'s; my first weekend home - people came over to hang out at the manor with us friday (including
deadmoonrising, pyrogus, kitten, 
stacidevi, brutus, amy, peter, deanna, kevin, and more) then my grandmother's birthday party followed by dancing at eshock (thanks all - i missed eshock a lot); dinner at hard times with vicar; the ego_likeness show at chronos; dinner and eshock with deadmoonrising; drinks with my dad; talking with zooom, kitten, jer and marcy at various times at our house; dinner with dad, kim & courtney; all of yule weekend - including hanging out with everyone friday night, getting to see mark's new studio, the yule feast and the after party; dinner with mom/sister/nephews/grandma (and a decent japanese steakhouse in shrewsbury, pa); dinner with peter and deanna on monday before i came home; and of course having a home to return to and the fact that everyone here was happy to see me back and seemed to miss my presencethe bad included - waaaayyy too much travel (pa, nc, nj/ny, pa again); difficult discussions with
zooom and mom and dad; trying to pack up more of the house in dc; and the fucking weather - cold = pain and misery and as much as i love everyone on the east coast i'm thinking i'll forgoe visits when it's winter in the future - i was in agony most of the vist and i don't want to do that to myself again 