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Happy Christmas everyone. We had a good one.
My son got a Playmobile Scooby Doo Haunted Mansion from his Grandma and Grandad. It's the present that he really wanted and when he opened it he'd thrown his arms in the air and then kissed the box. It turned out that part of the "fun" of this toy is that you have to construct the thing yourself and this job fell to me this afternoon. It was extremely complicated and the mainly invisibly tiny parts were all in different bags seemingly with no regard for what order you'd need to use them in. I couldn't find the candlestick that operated the staircase that turns into a slide, but then though maybe you had to combine two little bits to make it. It turned out those were the front door handles and once they were together you couldn't get them apart. It was my only serious error and I later managed to pull them apart with pliers and only break a bit off one of them.
It was a frustrating experience, especially as the kids were trying to play with the toy as I was making it and sitting on all the bits, but it was rewarding to get something together that looked like it was meant to and my son really loved this present so much. It was only late on, when he told me that Scooby Doo was stuck in the chimney and I took off the chimney to discover Fred down there that I realised my son thought Scooby Doo was the man, not the dog. When told that Scooby was the dog he went a bit crazy and insisted that Fred was Scooby Doo. He didn't even know who Scooby Doo was, but it reminded me of my own mind-blowing realisation that Tom was the cat and Jerry was the mouse. I was convinced Tom was the mouse and I cried at the heartbreaking revelation. I was 28 years old.
I don't know why Ernie wanted a toy associated with a show that he'd presumably never seen, but he was happy so that's all that matters.
My favourite gift was from my daughter. She described it as a scary zombie head and that was a fine description. She'd cut all the hair off a toy hair-styling doll that she'd got at Santa's Grotto (and which turned out to be a bit crap) and then pulled the head off and painted it.
It was the kind of thing a future serial killer would do, but it was strangely beautiful too and she'd put a lot of work into it, so rather than worrying about her eventually murdering me in my sleep, I felt quite flattered by the gesture. It will also make a good puppet for Twitch of Fun, maybe as some haunted alien or psychic or something.
I ate enough food to make me want to start my diet tomorrow, but maintained my alcohol free 2021, so that's something.
