First Christmas of three

We got back from celebrating Christmas in Champaign. It was a good and gastronomically enjoyable weekend, with the traditional Christmas fondue on Saturday and a lovely roast on Sunday, complete with yorkshire puddings and mashed potatoes. longstrider added to his Munchkin collection (Munchkin Impossible and Super Munchkin 2: The Narrow S Cape), and I received the entirety of the Vicar of Dibley on dvd. Britcom heaven!

K didn't show a lot of interest in tearing wrapping paper off, although she really enjoyed the gift that came in a gift bag. It turned out to be the gift that kept on giving, since she spent quite a bit of time toddling around with a stuffed bunny in one hand and the gift bag in the other, periodically stopping to take the bunny in and out of the bag. She also enjoyed the bow from one of her packages, which she ceremoniously applied to all of her gifts.

There were two harder parts of the weekend. The first was our decision to give Bunter to chibirisu. It was a decision of several parts. The first came quite a while ago when I was reading rental listings and discovered that it would be very difficult to find a place to live with more than two cats, especially if they still have their claws. That in itself wouldn't be a reason to give one of the cats away, but Bunter has never fit well into the household, and it's only gotten worse since K came along. Sonya and Olwen don't like him because he's always trying to move up the dominance hierarchy. And meanwhile, we've been having more and more encounters with Bunter striking out at K just because she was near him. We can't have that. Poor Bunter is a cat that would do best in a household where he can be top cat, and where there aren't a lot of people around to stress him out, and we can't provide him that. So chibirisu has agreed to try and give him a home if he isn't too hard on her allergies. I hope they do well together. We'll miss him, but this is for the best, especially after how he reacted to the car trip. The hour and a half trip to Champaign stressed him out so much, even after a sedative, that he peed in his carrier is an indication that the trip to Philadelphia would have been way too hard on him.

The second hard thing was simply leaving Champaign and our good friends behind. One of the best things about living in Lafayette has been the easy proximity to so many friends, and the fact that Champaign is an easy day trip has been wonderful. But now, we'll be lucky to see some of our closest friends once or twice a year. I'm thrilled longstrider has a job again and there are many things I look forward to about living in Philadelphia, but I will miss seeing our dear friends.

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Back on the road again tomorrow, to Philadelphia to find a place to live. This should be exciting.