christmas with mom's side

friday night kent john and i ate dinner with uncle lloyd and aunt sharon's family, along with sarah's fiance jim and dan's girlfriend genevieve who both seemed nice, and then drove up to rumson
saturday we went to federici's (pizza) and jersey freeze for lunch and then to angelo's (i don't know the actual name of the place but the owner's name is angelo)(italian restaurant with the best tiramasu i've ever eaten) angelo is an italian immigrant who started a restaurant, but it seems the main reason he did so was to have a venue for singing. every hour he steps in his little booth, puts on one of the many funky hats he has hanging there, and sings italian songs with Lots of reverb on the mike, it is IMMENSELY entertaining
sunday was my mom's birthday so we went to a steak place (35$ for the steak... NOTE: i gained 6 pounds this trip) when we sat down my grandpa told the waiter to bring out a creme brule with a candle in it for my mom for dessert, but Not to sing to her, that we would take care of that
while we ate, we learned why he said that
someone else was celebrating their birthday in the restaurant and the waiters all gathered to "sing"
it was Awful, they "sang" in at least 2 different keys, in a weird tempo, and were less than enthusiastic (no applause from the restaurant)
so when it came my mom's turn, she had my grandpa, my dad, my three brothers and i, all of whom have lots of choir experience and decent voices to boot
when we finished we got applause from everyone, and a few jaw hanging stares from some of the other people who were there for the previous rendition (the hostess also came over and said she understood why he didn't want her to sing)
so on to christmas,
because we weren't aware of the traditions over there, we didn't buy any presents for anyone, and because they don't really know any of us, we got gift cards for presents
but not jsut one big gift card each, or one gift card from each of a few places, no, we got 5 gift cards from walmart or best buy all packaged in various ways, which i thought was hilarious
(and also something i consider a great gift, hooray walmart!)
i also got a set of craftsman mini-plier tools that i wanted so that was nice
it was especially great because i felt so at home with that side of the family, my grandpa and uncles' complete lack of enthusiasm when it came to gifts was very comforting
after presents we ate christmas dinner and sat around chatting and listened to amanda play piano and sarah sing (well performed music up close and personal is so wonderful) and watched football (i watched more football this weekend than the rest of the year combined) (my grandpa played for the mizzou tigers for a couple years)
the next morning kent john and i got up and left at 7:15 to drive the 14 hours home (and we didn't die on the way back either)