Presented Without Comment

A creation of Andrew's.

AAM NAAM NAAM!

Always sad to say goodbye to family, and always excited to be back in Canada!

Leaving and Working

Mom went home this morning, and Simon went home this afternoon, but not before Dad took us to show us his work and Simon got the chance to expertly bomb a few photos:

Winning at Christmas

Christmas may be about family, but Christmas day is about presents. That box has a hand-made robo-patterned snuggie in it, and hell yes.

It's also possible to win at Christmas. For instance, Joanna won at Christmas by making me the perfect snuggie. Baby Interrobang won by getting this home-made quilt from Lisa:

Auntie D won 'most clever' for her gift of a subtle hint for Dad:

Matthew and his family won for coming from the future:

Dad won by asking for memories for Christmas, we all won for giving them, and Toshia won for putting them together for us.

And we all won for food.

Team Mommy

Portland is also home to some once-removed and second cousins, which means Christmas parties with people I haven't seen since they were 6, but who will still hug you when you see them. Which is, frankly, outstanding.

Here's Mom, showing her cousin-in-law (or, cousin-out-law?) how we had lots of hair or no hair or something as babies, and Dad grinning with his sister, putting the lie to the whole sibling rivalry we hear so much about. Below, my second cousin and her Dad listen to Joanna explain something about babies. It's a baby-themed holiday, which is also outstanding.

... because we're getting a new one. Here's Toshia helping Interrobang model her first ever Christmas gift, a "team mommy" onesie.

Christmas Shopping!

Christmas is at Dad's place this year, because it can hold all of us:

Also, because it's in Portland, which is full of outstanding:

And they have beer in the grocery store. A beer aisler. With a Micro Brew section.

How dare you, Portland

Andrew, Erin, Brendan and I went down to Portland, where he showed us the bridges:
...and several of the audacious things that Portland has to offer. Here's the Philip K Dick SECTION of the local book store:
Here's the theatre where we saw Dan Savage's very special film festival
Here's the warehouse district where the giant brew-pub beerhall was:
Here are their beers. Their strong, hoppy, brewed-in-house beers.

Hospitality

Andrew and I drove down to Jackson to visit Lisa, Cynthia and Matt. They took us to a waterfall, made us vegetarian food, and greeted us in the driveway with beer Matt brewed himself, poured from a tap he made himself out of a still-functioning computer.

Keeping Up with the Diltses

I get tweets on my phone now.  The (other?) bad news is that it's a 140 character phone in a 160 character world.

Fine traditions

Obviously we went back to the beach for Christmas, to see the wildlife.
Then we came home for Claymation Christmas, 
And Toshia's bubbling-hot Blackberry Cobbler.

Christmas eve will find me.....

chomp chomp

Simon is the brother I tell you about whose e-mails always describe some ridiculously awesome job he just got.  He couldn't leave his current job for more than a day or two, so Christmas is at his place this year, so we get to do the job too.  

Shopping in Waterloo

Waterloo has yuppied up since I left, as you can tell by the shopping.  Look at these:They look delicious, right?  But they're DOG FOOD.

The good news is you can also buy delicious local beer. 

Not to mention buying houses with sheep:

Zillions of Diltses

Did I ever tell you that story about my brother? Did I fail to make it clear which one of these three I was talking about?[The one in the middle is my dad.]  Oh, that's not a great picture of Simon.  Here he is with a Martini made of chocolate and Marshmallows, FTLOG: And anyway, brothers don't make up nearly half of the Diltses these days:

Andrew is the one sublimating between my mom and Joanna.

Holiday Traditions

It wouldn't be a Dilts Family Christmas without a trip to a fancy-pants suburban mall.  Usually it's not this snowy: How fancy-pantsy was it?  Well, there were your standard creepy mezmerizers:

The under-escalator grand piano players:

And, new this year, theoretical cars on the floor will smash into your foot FOR FREE:

Scenes From a Family

Simon puts his real-life drumming experience to good use while Matt sings.

Andrew tries to avoid photo evidence that he has ever in his life played Rock Band.

Simon, who hosts a nature show on a South African wildlife television channel, uses a gift his fans sent him to hide from Papparazzi.

Winning 2 out of 3 wasn't bad either

Curling is great mostly because you get to see all of your old friends at the same time.