Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone’s had a lovely Christmas, and Santa brought you what you hoped for and more. Personally, this was a most quiet and low-key Christmas for the first time ever. My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and we keep the gift-giving to a very bare minimum. It makes both me and my checking account incredibly happy. Every year there’s always one little unexpected surprise though, and this year is no different. For one, I’ve learned my cousin is pregnant again, which is a blessed gift for the whole family. Two, in my other social online life, I received a most generous and kind Secret Santa gift from a guildie of mine in World of Warcraft. For the last couple of years, Emerald Dream has participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange, thanks to Anarae, a lovely guildie who’s taken over the fun and games duty since I stopped hosting events long ago.

I’d not logged in since Christmas Eve, and tonight I log in to find this mail:

It had 7 neatly wrapped packages, and I was smiling from ear to ear as I opened them all. And here are all my gifts on display:

Thank you Caregiver, for making my Christmas a very special WoWish one!

Erm

I swear I’m writing a new post soon. Someday. No really.  There’s so much to be said!  I still have to blab a little about my BlizzCon, Internet Librarian, Gaming Learning and Libraries Symposium experiences, and most definitely, Wrath of the Lich King. However…I’m busy levelling (Miriella is 80 and gearing up as best she can before Naxx, and Springroll is 72). And I’m enjoying REAL life as we know it, too! I’ve had a lot of big-ticket life-changing experiences in 2008 – new job, new apartment, new life status. There’s still a month left in 2008, but I’m hoping that’s it for the big crazy changes for now.  It’s been a whirlwind of chaos for me this year, and for the most part, it’s all been extremely positive. I’m working on settling down and enjoying the company of me, myself and I – and for the last few months I think I’ve done okay.  I’ve done a lot of things that I thought I’d never do, thought I’d never get the chance to do, or thought about doing.  I’ve met tons and tons of new people in 2008; my networking web has expanded exponentially. I’ve made a number of new friends as well, and amazingly, I’ve met an astonishing number of once-faceless friends. Thanks to Twitter, FriendFeed, World of Warcraft, Facebook, and more, our small world became even smaller for me.  I seem to have inadvertently started a small ”reflection on 2008″ post, so I’ll simply end with kind wishes to you and your dearest for a blessed, healthy and joyous 2009.