And lots of good time with family and friends.

I wish mine went a bit better, we didn't eat dinner until about 10pm, and gifts weren't opened until about midnight... Mostly this is due to issues with both of my brothers - one going completely AWOL with communication, the other also being a no-show on account of being exhausted from an 18hr work shift the previous day. He had said he'd still come, and would call at 3pm.

That didn't happen, so when my stepmom sent dad out to actually check on him, he wasn't home. Turned out he ended up sleeping most of the day, then went to visit his girlfriend and ended up napping there too. To stepmom it was as if he intentionally snubbed her and purposefully hurt her. Dad and I got the brunt of that vent unfortunately, in the form of nitpicking minor things we did about dinner that she detests. It was getting to the point I was almost completely put off a meal I desperately needed after not eating since noon with her sitting in an outraged silence with a piled plate of untouched food. I had to leave the table at one point to prevent an outburst at the next thing she said.

Negs aside, I got some very lovely, and surprising gifts.

From my family out west I got a couple pieces of clothing as per norm - though the sweater they sent was ah.. far too large for me to wear in public, but works for an around-the-house wear. The legwarmers were different - not sure if they're something that works for me, even if they're a solid black.

From family here was a real surprise - a voucher for a sugar glider partner to Xeeva in the event the male I'm taking in as a rehome doesn't work well as a partner.

Quick story about that - a lady that a regular at my job knows is looking to rehome her 3yo male sugar glider who lost his lady-partner due to being unable to get him another partner. The regular herself realized she couldn't take him in, but remembered I had gliders and asked if I was interested in giving him a home. My family here were more than excited at the idea of my starting up breeding sugar gliders raised as therapy animals (along with other aspects such as being a non-profit rescue/foster, boarder, and out-of-house babysitter if things go well). There are already a couple people, including a relative, who have expressed interest in the joeys.

I'm a little worried how my neutered male Thony might take all this, as it's advised to not have more males than females in any given colony due to territory issues. My folks already know one of my fallback plans is to either find the new male a forever home, or have him neutered and find him his own lady friend - since most breeders refuse to sell a breeding animal to a partner with unknown lineages and health.

At any rate my little colony is now officially named the 'Salt Bay Gliders' - my original concept was 'Sea-Bay Gliders' due to where I am geographically, but stepmom's memory is really patchy lately with an increasing habit of twisting my words around to mean something else.

The catch with getting a breeding male is that they fetch a really high price. Though Xeeva does have a pedigree - she's from a company that I really look down on as mill breeders with their sale habits (she came to me from a kid who bought her on impulse from one of their vendors at the mall I had worked in at the time).

As a final touch to this Christmas gifting - someone or a couple someones sent me all the books of a series I had on my wishlist, so now I have plenty of time to read them without trying to speed-cram it all in during brief trips to the library! I know the bigger package came from my folks in the south, but I've no idea if the single-book envelope came from them as well or someone else.

So, yeah, the lateness of it all is the reason why I haven't posted the photos of the gifts I made so far yet - still need to process and clean them up, but I'm super exhausted right now XP

Still have a couple high-level late gifts to make, then I should be back on commissions while opening a few more slots to fund the preparations for the new glider, which mainly involves a rearranging of my room for space economy, funds for vet checks, and extra supplies to be prepared ahead of time for the event my female does indeed accept the new male and starts producing joeys.

.... You guys may want to prepare yourselves to see lots of joey photos if that event does come to pass....