On Saturday afternoon I mentioned that I was on my way to my “Charis & Zoe” Christmas. It was so much fun!
After my mom passed away, my family never made a huge deal out of Christmas. My dad would give my brother and I our gifts on Christmas morning, but we didn’t have any other family over and the celebration was usually fairly low key. I’ve always really enjoyed Christmas, so I usually latched on to the Christmas traditions of friends or boyfriends. It was when I was in musical theatre school that Charis and Zoe invited me to spend Christmas at their house.
I had known them for a couple of years at that point and had started to become fairly close with both of them. I had a wonderful time that year. Being in school, I didn’t have a ton of money to spend so I got them a bunch of little things like socks and chocolates. The following year was kind of funny, thanks to an extra-large gift.
I had just started spending time with a boy a few weeks before the holidays. I was talking with Charis on the phone one day and she asked me what I was getting him. I said that I was thinking about baking him some cookies or something because it wasn’t very serious and I just wanted to get him something small. She called me back later that day to say that I needed to get him something more, because cookies were just not going to cut it. She couldn’t tell me why, but said that I would feel bad if I just went with the cookies. Recognizing that she obviously had insider information, I complied and ended up getting the boy some tickets for a play that was coming up.
I arrived at Charis and Zoe’s house on Christmas morning and noticed that Charis was acting sort of strange and that she wouldn’t let me into the living room to drop off their presents. After a few awkward moments, she finally relented and I saw the cause for her behaviour: a gigantic present sitting in front of the Christmas tree.
Oh dear.
Turns out the boy that I had been spending some time with had gotten in touch with Charis and asked if it would be okay if he dropped off my present at her house so that I could open it on Christmas morning. I had given him his gift the week prior but had not received anything in return and the appearance of the huge box explained why. After fearfully avoiding the present for nearly half an hour, I decided to open it. Inside was a stereo. Yes, a stereo.
Me and the gift giver had been talking for a few weeks and he gave me a stereo. I realized it was because I had mentioned that mine was broken and that I had been using a discman to listen to music. It was incredibly thoughtful, but a little too much, too soon. Charis, Zoe and I coined the term “going stereo” for when someone tries to make a relationship get serious too quickly. Unfortunately for the stereo-riffic boy, I realized that I wasn’t as interested in him as he was in me and I broke things off with him on New Year’s Eve. We’ve had a Christmas gathering every year since then, and I think the stereo is mentioned at least once each year.
Despite there being no stereos at this year’s Christmas celebration, but we did have a wonderful time together!
Charis and I consulted on the menu this week to determine what she and Zoe could make that was “Ashley-friendly”. We’ve always had something non-traditional and this year we ended up with Gado Gado from the Moosewood Cookbook (a favourite of Charis’)
Prior to our celebration, we send around lists so that the elves know what to buy! We also know one another pretty well by now, so we’re able to choose gifts that are fitting without relying on the lists as well.
I didn’t take pictures of all their gifts, but they included some body care, candles, notebooks and essentials oils for both of them, some pretty eye shadows and a super cool pepper grinder for Charis and some Foxy earrings and Dark Chocolate Dreams for Zoe. 
It was such a fun night and I really feel in the Christmas spirit! I am so lucky to have such fantastic friends in Charis and Zoe. It is such a wonderful tradition and look forward to it continuing in the years to come.
Do you have any funny stories about overwhelming Christmas gifts or other mishaps? What are your holiday traditions?
4 comments:
Hehe, love the "going stereo" story :-D
Your adopted family sound like beautiful people. Christmas at our house was always one BIG mishap! When there are 5 kids, 4 dogs, 2 spouses, and 2 parents trying to orchestrate things, you are bound to run into snaffus every 2 minutes! hahahaha
hahaha...AWKWARD!
I've actually been pretty lucky with gifts, but I was talking about this same topic with a friend a few days ago, who told me that she once received potpourri from a bf, which I thought was pretty awful.
I've had a Breville on my mind for some time too...Fingers crossed that Santa comes through :)
Merry Christmas, Ashley! Thanks for all the festive posts :)
What a nice story! Sounds like a great way to spend the holidays, with people you love and that make you laugh ; ) Christmas was always crazy at our house, 4 girls means a lot of drama!!
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